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¥ttD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH; 



CAMFFIRES OF THE EVERGLADES. 



BY 



CHAKLES E. WHITEHEAD, 

TRANSLATOR OF •*GERARD THH LIOK KILLKR. 



" Yet let OS sing, 
Honor to the old bowstring ; 
Honor to tha bngle horn ; 
Honor to the woods nnshom." 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY EHNINGER, TAIT AND OTHERS. 



NEW YORK: 

DERBY & JACKSOl^, 119 NASSAU STREET. 

1860. 






Ektxebb according to Act of Congreu, in the yenr 1860, by 

DERBY & JACKSON, 

la the Clark's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. 



W. H. TitJBOif, Stbekotyi'sk. 



Gbo. Robsbll a Co., Pbintbbs. 



/ 



</? J 



7 a- 



THIS VOLUME 

IS DEDICATED, 

WITH FEELINGS OP THE PROFOTrNDEST KESPECT AND VENERATIOIC, 

TO THE 

BIG BEAR OF THE WAKASSARE RIVER, 

AND THE 

FRIENDS WHO "WEEB IN AT HIS DEATH. 



PREFACE 



The larger portion of the Sketches contained in this 
volume were contributions made by the Author to " The 
Spirit of the Times," a few years ago, under the title 
of " Camp-Fire Stories," and as some of them have 
been floating about in other papers, this statement 
seems necessary, lest the reader may regard these 
"twice-told tales" as lacking in originality. 

Nothing more is claimed for this volume than that it 
contains pleasant reminiscences of hunting life and 
adventure in the peninsula of Florida, and counterparts 
of tales, some of them remembered, some of them 
fancied, that frontier hunters tell when assembled at 
night around their camp-fires. 

The Author does not ask that each story shall be 
regarded as having occurred literally as written ; but he 
believes the spirit of the tales, the description of natural 
scenery, and the fragments of Indian history to be cor- 
rect, and he has carefully striven not to offend the keen 
observation and long experience of his hunting comrades 
at the South whose eyes will scrutinize these pages, by 
any allusion to natural history which is not exactly true. 
If the book will recall the Author pleasantly to their 
minds, or awaken the remembrance of grand old sports 
and merry camp-fires in the States of the South, its 
object is attained. 



CONTENTS. 



PAOB 

Introductory, ^ 

The Camp Fire, 20 

A Bear in the Camp, 40 

The Dangers of Fire-hunting, 51 

The Plantation House of " Far Away," 61 

The Panther's Cub, ^^ 

The Deer Hunt, ^^ 

The Fireside at Far Away, 1^^ 

The Still Hunt, ^^^ 

The Florida Pocahontas, 1^^ 

The Florida Pocahontas, continued, 159 

The Battue on Bonda Key, ^*° 

The History of an Old Friend, 1^5 

The Drowned Lands, • ^^® 



VUl CONTENTS. 



PAGB 



Ths Skin of the Tiger-Cat, 239 

Supper, 245 

Home Again, 265 

The Burial, 285 

Indian History, 295 

A Bear in Difficulty, 303 

How we conquered Halleck Tustenuggee, 311 

The " Painter " in the Pig Pen, 327 

Poke receives a Cur'osity and tells a Yarn, 341 

Woodland Choruses, 354 

Life in the Light-house, 866 

Tracking the Enemy, 872 

Smoking out the Enemy, 382 

Besieging the Light-house, 893 

Mike and Tiger Tail play Chess, 404 

The Surrender at Discretion, 416 



WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

" flourish, hidden deep in fern, 
Old oak I love thee well, 
A thousand thanks for what I learn, 
And what remains to tell." 

Tennyson. 

A GOODLY creation is a tree ! Its mast-like trunk, 
supporting a thousand branches that weave and inter- 
weave, fretting the "blue air with their tracery; 
lithe to the wind, stubborn to the storm, the pUlars 
bend but do not break, in the long-dra-vvn leafy 
aisles of God's cathedral. Its roots, far-reaching, with 
tiny fibres probe the earth for moisture, and send the 
life-blood through the arteries to the fragrant blossoms 
and the topmost leavps that " clap their little hands in 
glee with one continuous sound." To its shadow not only 
the beasts of the field come for shelter, but millions of 
insects seek a home under the rough folds of its bark, or 

■weave their cradles in its rocking boughs. On its 

I* 9 



10 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

branches the birds build their nests, and in its hollows the 
squirrel and the hooting owl conceal their young, and the 
wild bee stores its sweets, while both day and night the 
buds breathe their perfume, and the wind, the rustling 
leaves, and its feathered guests, chant an anthem of 
praise. 

If it be a pleasant thing to see one plant thus munifi- 
cently endowed, how does it delight the heart to look 
down the forest, where trees of every hue and form stand 
in countless numbers, and their shade, with its perpetual 
twilight, makes a new climate, where new flora gem the 
sheltered earth, where parasite plants and vines festoon 
the trees with corridors, gay with flowers, or purple with 
clustered fruit, where the moss takes the place of grass, 
and the last year's leaves fill the hollows — where the 
wild bird and timid game make their home, and gambol 
in the unrestrained indulgence of natural instincts ! To 
this scene add the brook cluttered with stones and filled 
with leaves, the open river tenanted with aquatic birds, 
and making vistas in the woods, and, lastly, the deep 
blue of the sea, fringed with the white of the breakers, 
and complaining of its limits, and you will have the view 
that is to be met in nearly every sea-coast forest in 
the land. But in the woods of the far southern States^ 
and more particularly in the Florida peninsula, Nature 
develops new beauties, and excites further thoughts of 
praise to its Creator. 

There simmer first unfauld her robes, 
And there they langest tarry, 



TUltoET HUJSTING. 11 

bringing in her train the fragrance of the earth, with the 
colors of the sky, decking her tallest trees with flowers 
proportioned to their grandeur. There the lakes and 
rivers are broad and deep, and teem with curious animal 
life. There the birds of the air are painted with crimson, 
and sing in dialects consonant with the voluptuous clime. 
There the great queen lily rides the lagoon, where 
drooping moss from the live oaks so curtain its retreat 
that no eye ever sees it but the wild bird's, and there the 
earth is so prolific of her fruits that there is abundance 
for all the crowded forest. No single life is forgotten, 
and the minute insect that feeds on the pollen of the 
tiger lily, lives as abundantly as the alligator that takes 
his toll from the whole animal creation. 

Thus from year to year have the seasons come and 
gone ; animal and vegetable life has reached its limit of 
years, has fallen and decayed, and wealth that would have 
enriched a nation has only formed the subsoil for anotlier 
age, nor eye of man has seen, nor pen of man has told, 
the wonders of that inner forest that was barred by 
nature and the Seminole from the civilized world. 

Under such a wood, near where the Stinhatchee River 
empties its dark waters into the Gulf of Mexico, at Dead- 
man's Bay, the grey light came to my eyes as I lay 
wrapped in my blanket, by the smoldering camp-fire, a 
few years ago. Hunters and negroes were all still buried 
in dreams, and the weary hounds lay stretched around 
indiscriminately among the sleepers. No tent was raised, 
for the elements required none, though a screen of 



12 WILD SPOETS m THE SOUTH. 

boughs had been built as a break-wind, and to keep the 
reflected heat near the fire. Here and there were scat- 
tered accoutrements, or the relics of the last night's 
meal, feathers of birds, skins of beasts, antlers of deer. 
The serried leaf of the palmetto fringed us around like a 
hedge, and above us the tassels of the pine trees just 
began to be discernible against the mornmg sky. Once 
in a whUe a bird twittered in the trees, now and then a 
sound like dropping rain was heard, where some animal 
shook the dew-laden branches. All else was still, save 
the quiet murmur of the sea on the beach, some little 
distance off. Its low roar lulled me ; I shut my eyes to 
the coming dawn, and turned over in my blanket. How 
pleasant is that second sleep at the grey twilight ! 

I know not how long I slept ; but when I awoke the 
negroes had rekindled the fire, and a pleasant fragrance 
of cooking meats mingled with the pine scent of the 
forest. I started to my feet, and taking my gun, saun- 
tered down the bank of the river, partly for a walk, and 
partly to search for game. The air was clear and cool, 
and all nature seemed to be coming forth to salute the 
day. The quail whistled in the distance, the grey and 
fox squirrels leaped from bough to bough, or half 
descending the great trunks of the oak trees, challenged 
with pert gestures the passers-by. Long trains of cor- 
morants sailed overhead to their feeding grounds, and 
with measured beat the ibis and heron were slowly pass- 
ing seaward. I saw the ducks feeding on the margins 
of the river, and the various tribes of woodpeckers, jays. 



TURKEY HUNTING. 13 

and hawks, flitting among the trees ; but noi\e of these 
excited my attention : they were rather the constant 
sights that one sees without regarding. At length the 
gobble of a turkey came faintly on the air. I have 
heard that sound often before, and trust to hear it many 
times hereafter, but I can never listen to its first clear 
note without a flutter of delight, that I verily believe is 
greater far than that of its sweetheart, as she listens 
from the jungle to this the loud love-call of her mate. 
It apparently does not strike the ear, but the heart, and 
then tingles outward through every nerve. There may 
be something in this of early association, but it is one of 
the pleasantest that a man has in this world, and which 
so often makes him rich when he has never a sou. I 
stoj^ped short and listened for a repetition of the sound, 
to tell from what direction it came, and also for any 
answer that might come back, as by directing my course 
toward the latter I could intercept the cock when he 
should take his course. The hundred little beings that 
talked around me in their various tongues were all 
speaking. The forest that I thought so still, was now, 
when attentively listening, full of life. How distinctly 
now came the booming of the sea, and the distant tap of 
the ivory-billed woodpecker ! Yet I could hear no cluck 
of hen, or responsive gobble of the younger cocks of the 
brood. Again the call was repeated. First a low 
chuckle, and then the rich guttural vowels poured out 
in a hurried volume. It domineers over every other 
sound by reason of its peculiarity. There is no manner 



14 WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 

of representing it in language, tliough the negroes have 
a song that ends in a turkey chorus, which might be 
written thus : Chug-u-logga, chug-u-logga, chug-u-logga- 
chug. In the liquid negro patois it is not dissimilar. 
Having taken the bearings of the turkey by his sound, 
and mentally estimated his distance, I ran on ahead, dur- 
ing a time equal to the interval between his calls, and 
then stopped and listened. In a moment the call 
resounded through the woods near me. I walked care- 
fully forward, sheltering myself behind clumps of alders 
and trunks of trees, and having gone what I thought was 
a sufficient distance, waited and watched attentively. 
Again the note sounded, but it seemed in the air. I cast 
ray eye upward, and there, perched on the dead and top- 
most boughs of a tall sycamore, from whence he could 
overlook the surrounding forest, stood my friend. His 
erect and slender form was drawn ujd to its full height, 
his little head turned quickly to the right and the left as 
he surveyed the forest below him, lit up by the same 
early sun that was burnishing his own glossy breast. I 
could imagine the view he was eying, and it must have 
been the conscious pride of a chieftain viewing his native 
heaths and hills that drew his form to such stately pro- 
portions. From where he sat he overlooked river and 
lake, broad lagoon and open ocean, and hundreds of low 
lying islands ; he saw savannahs covered with reeds and 
osiers, and shady with taperiug canes, where bred the 
crab, and trailed the snail and centiped ; he heard the 
pattering rain of pecan and of beech-nuts on the upland, 



TUKKEY HUNTING. 15 

and saw the pawpaw bear its luscious fruit ; shady glens 
and pools of water invited to repose, and in fancy's eye 
his lazy harem lay beneath those trees, shuffling with 
their wings the clear white sand of the hummocks that 
bounded the sea. All this he saw, and then swelling his 
throat, he sent forth his clear alarm, herald of the morn, 
and gathering cry of his clan. 

I understood his feeling, and yet raising my rifle I 
took aim at him (strange contrariety of man) and fired. 
A half-uttered gobble was suppressed, and spreading his 
wings he sailed away in a slanting direction. " Missed," 
I ejaculated, as I saw him skating along like a hawk. 
Just then, without an indication, he rolled over in the 
air and came crashing through the boughs of the pine 
trees to the earth. 

I ran to my prize. His heavy beard and long spurs 
showed him to be an old gobbler, probably one of those 
lonely birds that, expatriating themselves from their 
flocks, wander about in self-doomed celibacy. Throwing 
my game over my shoulders, I returned to camjD and to 
breakfast, well contented with my success. 

If the reader is desirous of knowing what is a wild 
turkey, by turning to Audubon's, Wilson's, or Bona- 
parte's Ornithology, he will discover it to be of the 
gallinaceous order, with conical papilla on the forehead, 
neck corrugated, beset with cavernous caruncles, frontal 
caruncle blue and red, and with scutellate toes, scabrous 
above and papillas beneath, etc. After pondering on 
Ihis description he may suspect that his ideas on tho 



16 WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

subject may be rather confused, he may doubt if he 
would be able to sketch the bird from the descrip- 
tion given, and may desire to hear it described' in 
simpler language. 

If so, let him imagine a full-grown black turkey cock 
of the domestic species made shy and cautious in its 
movements, restless with its head and neck, high step- 
ping over obstacles with its bare, sinewy legs, and 
erect, slender and game-like in its bearing. The wild 
turkey is to its barnyard kinsman what the racehorse 
is to the carthorse. See him in the early morn as 
he stands on some elevation, and welcomes the dawn, 
and announces to his family his movements for the day. 
His scarlet wattles lie pendent on a neck that one mo- 
ment curves like a swan's and in another is erect like a 
crane's ; his comb is a soldier's plume, his eye is full and 
hazel black, gleaming with something of a human look 
from his shapely head, covered by the wiinkles of skin 
and a few scattered hairs, and tinged with blue and red. 
His neck swells very gradually to his body, and is bur- 
nished with a gloss of brown and gold that varies with 
every light. There is no pomposity or clumsiness about 
his air ; on the contrary, his whole manners are those of 
an accomplished gallant and a warrior. 

You see him among the hens. Their gentle looks are 
on him, and they follow his unspoken directions Avith 
perfect readiness. They ramble hither and thither as 
fancy leads them beneath the wild plum-trees, pick- 
ing the stray fruit that has ripened before its season 



TURKEY HUNTING. 17 

and fallen to the ground, then a russet persimmon or a 
choice pecan-nut shaken down by last night's wind. 
Their leader casts his eye from side to side, scanning 
everything that moves. Now a caressing love-note is 
uttered to his favorite hen ; then, drawing himself to his 
full height, he gives a glance of scrutiny into the woods 
ahead of him, where the little pine trees open an ex- 
tended vision. Passing a rotten stump, with a stroke of 
his stalwart leg and claws he tears down the rotten bark. 
A half inclination of the head, more graceful than that of 
any gentleman, defers to the nearest hen a curd-white grub 
that has rolled out from the wood, and with a low cluck 
of acknowledgment she picks it up. !N"ow with one foot 
half raised, he searches for the cause of a sudden noise. 
Ah ! it was only that opossum, and the turkeys care little 
for him when they are in a flock together, and now in 
passing he leaps up and catches a beetle that was crawl- 
ing in a bush above him, now a may-apple, then a spider 
or plethoric tadpole stranded in the hollow of the reced- 
ing waters, are all espied by these wandering gipsies, and 
immediately appropriated. At length they reach the 
banks of a river; there is a little hurry among the 
young hens. They don't like large streams : there are 
alligators and garfish in the water, and wild-cats and 
eagles prowling around the banks, yet the river is to be 
crossed, and they are not half so good at flying as they 
are at running. Indeed they would walk round the 
head of it, had they not learned that all Florida rivers 
connect, in some way, one with another. As it is, they 



18 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

walk up and down a little while on the high bank, cluck- 
ing and purring, with an occasional pick at some mis- 
placed feather, just as an old lady smooths down her 
apron before expressing any decided opinion. The cock 
may occasionally spread his fan if the sun shines brightly 
where he stands, and utter his loud thrumming sounds 
like the roll of a drum. He has eyed for some minutes 
a low-limbed juniper tree, standing near, and presently, 
after much examination, flits into it. Up go the hens 
in succession, and from the juniper they all fly to the 
upper limbs of a dead cotton-wood standing hard by. 
There is a continuation of the duckings and notes of 
preparation, and then with the gobbler in the van, they 
launch themselves out in the air, and with broad ex- 
tended pinions float in a slanting direction across the 
river, landing on the opposite side, at the edge of the 
underbrush, and are immediately lost to view. 

I remember a pretty incident in connection with a tur- 
key hen falling under my own eye, demonstrating a 
knowledge of character on her part. 

I had taken my stand on the end of St. Rosas Island, 
ofl" Pensacola, to watch for deer that the hounds were 
driving. After my arrival I noticed a turkey hen 
come skimming to the ground, and presently walk 
toward a knoll of grass a few yards from my place of 
concealment. Her anxious look and her feigned attitude 
of indifference immediately showed me that she was near 
her nest, and taking a little pocket spy-glass I carried 
with me to watch the water channels, I presently saw 



TUBKET HUNTING. 119 

her settle herself down among some low willows, until I 
could discern nothing but her head. 

Shortly afterward a fox came by, and coming across 
the trail of the turkey he turned short about, and throw- 
ing up his sharp nose, scented the different spears of 
grass the bird had touched, and then taking up her trail, 
commenced following it slowly and cautiously toward 
where she was sitting. "With noiseless foot and undulat- 
ing body he wound along in the trail, when suddenly, to 
my surprise, I saw the turkey hen leave her willow 
clump, and returning on her own trail, walk directly 
toward the fox. She picked hither and thither, in a non- 
chalant manner, and when within some ten or fifteen 
yards of her enemy, who had crouched in the sparse 
grass when he first saw her coming, she diverged slowly 
to the right, and the fox, as she turned aside, recom- 
menced his crawlings, keeping his eye on the bird and 
leaving the trail he had been previously following. In 
this way they progressed some hundred yards in a direc- 
tion contrary to her nest, when coming near a low tree, 
with a soft chuckle, which seemed to say, as plain as 
accent could make it, " what a fool you are," she flitted 
up in the tree. 

The fox being then on open ground, at once knew 
himself discovered, and raising from his crouching posi- 
tion, after one or two longing looks, and a whimper of 
disappomtment, trotted over the sandhills, and was lost 
to sight. 



90 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE CAMP FIEE. 

*' Under the shore his boat was tied, 
And all her listless crew 
Watched the grey aljiigator slide 
Into the still bayoii." 

LOXaFELLOW. 

" Turkey buzzard ?" sarcastically cried my friend and 
hunting comrade, Poke, as, returning to camp, I laid my 
game down, and seated myself by the blanket that was 
serving for a table, and around which Poke, the hunter 
Mike, and the two negro boys were busy at their break- 
fast. 

" Spring turkey ?" inquired Mike, in delicate allusion 
to the age of my turkey. 

It was generally the habit of the party to quiz each 
other at every success, and even mishaps were treated 
as sources of amusement. 

" Da is har nuff to pizen all Floridy," said Scipio Afri- 
canus, raising the long tassel of beard hanging at the 
turkey's breast. 

" Pooh !" said Poke, " I don't believe in that nonsense ; 
it wouldn't kill a cat." 

" Jis you try him, da's all; ya cut em up fine, and put 



THE CAMP FIRE. 21 

um in de grog or de bread, and don't he work um ? 
Din't ole Ma'm Lize, on de Robinson plantation, take off 
Maussa Robinson? She be real nigger witch! Ole 
man, he took sick, and all ee doctors in Swanna couldn't 
cure him all winter, an' in de spring he die ob turkey 
beard. Dat's Gospel !" 

" You nigga, mussen come cooking 'fore our fire, or 
we be habin' turkey beard too," retorts Caesar, as with 
his black muscular arms, bare to the shoulder, he elbowed 
his darky brother aside to put a dish of meat before the 
party. 

The sight of the smoking food brought every man's 
thoughts and fingers to the subject before him. The 
huge roll of cookery smelled good, but was by no means 
comely to look at. As layer after layer of green leaves 
were pulled off, there presently rolled out what might 
have been a pig in civilized life, but which we immedi- 
ately recognized as an oppossum. His skin and hair 
adhered to the wrappings that had been bound around 
him, and which kept him from the ashes and the burning 
coals, and nothing now remained but the steamy fat 
little carcass that would have made a vegetarian forego 
his creed. Added to this there Avas a venison steak and 
some corn-bread, and Poke had a canteen of whisky hid 
away (the sensual dog!) and we feasted like kings, or 
rather as kings are supposed to feast, with great good 
humor and monstrous appetites, but which I verily sus- 
pect kings rarely have. Each one pulled at the 'possum, 
or cut strips from the venison, as he liked, and as fast 



23 WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 

as one cake was eaten, another would be ready on the 
stone in front of the fire. Beyond the cu'cle sat the 
hounds, awaiting, with expressive attitude, the stray bits 
that were handed them from time to time ; and joke, and 
tales, and future plans, were one by one rehearsed with 
laugh and hopeful wishes. 

Poke was a jolly fellow. A critical judge of character 
might have said he was a little lazy, but none of us were 
critical, and who could blame a man who never lost his 
temper in all his life ? His face was like an orange, so 
full and gentle, and the soft flaxen curls that clustered 
tight around his head were like a child's. A shrewd 
observer, he never saw a leaf changing color but he 
inquired the reason, and with his gentle air read human 
character with great facility. He seemed to know every- 
thing, medicine, and the arts, and the commonest little 
handicraft, and the greatest human theories, and he would 
discourse up to his waist in a miry slough upon the beau- 
ties of some aquatic plant as gracefully as in a parlor on 
the color of a painting. His true name was Earnest 
Pollock. His acquaintances called him Doctor, for he 
had studied medicine at Paris ; the newspapers call him 
the Honorable Mr. Pollock, for he had once been 
appointed bearer of dispatches to Russia : I called him 
Poke, for I loved him. Poke was short in stature, and 
ready to talk. In this respect he was the counterpart of 
Mike, or Michael Hone, or Mike the Spook, as he was 
termed by different classes of people. Mike was gaunt, 
though not over tall, slow in his motions, and very quiet 



THE CAMP FIEE. 23 

in whatever he did. There was no pretension or osten- 
tation about him, and so far did he carry this negative 
virtue, that he never mentioned himself if he could avoid 
it, and no one could tell his intentions or anticipate his 
motives until the act was done. A leather dress, and a 
leather cap, the same colored shoes and belt, with a blue 
flannel shirt, buttoned in front by two polished alliga- 
tor's teeth, was the invariable costume of the hunter. 
Once he had a cabin at Tampa, where he would come 
and go with such uncertainty that he obtained the name 
of Mike the Spook. Thence, at evening, when the set- 
tlers with anxious eye regarded the forest that environed 
them, dreading the whoop of the Seminole on every 
wind, Mike would flit into the shadow, and begone a 
month or more, appearing again on the limits of the 
peninsula at Fort Dallas. The great interior wilderness 
was his home, and in its solitudes he had acquired his 
taciturnity. His voice was low and singularly musical. 
He might not speak for hours, the indication of his fin- 
ger and the expression of his countenance being suffi- 
cient for all ordinary language, yet when he did, his tone 
was as efiective as a command. The villagers at Mican- 
opy called him Injun Mike, and said they never saw him 
come or go but in a storm, and they, hunters as they 
were, seemed afraid of his reckless will and strong 
arm. 

Mike acted as guide in our wildwood roamings. He 
had undertaken it partly from a liking for me, and partly, 
as I suspected, from mere curiosity to see the Doctor and 



24: WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

myself in the woods, for he would sometimes sit by the 
hour in his silent way, watching our motions and conver- 
sation. He never added a word, but if his opinion was 
asked, and the subject one that had been in the range of 
his observation, he answered the querist in the simplest 
manner. There he sat by the fire that morning ; I re- 
member him as if painted before me. His mahogany 
face wrinkled in kindly lines, and his chin covered by a 
long, thin beard. He was smoking in the Spanish fashion, 
rolling cigarettes from dried leaves across his knees, and 
his quizzical eye wandered over us with a considering look, 
as though we were children. A big, black and dun hound, 
with a melancholy face, stood beside him ; it was said 
either of them could track a bear by the scent. He had 
acquired the Indian habit of inhaling smoke for some 
minutes, and then driving it out of his mouth and nos- 
trils in dense volumes, as a whale fills his lungs with 
water, and then spouts it into the air. 

The negro boys, Scipio and Caesar, regarded him 
with feelings of respectful veneration. He excelled them 
in all their own handicraft. He knew every tree in the 
woods, and its uses ; the habits of wild game, vegetable 
poisons, and the best manner of cooking ; he could swim, 
ride, hunt, and shoot better than they. He had a close 
acquaintance with the Indians, and, the boys said, witli 
the devil, and therefore there was a superstitious awe in 
regard to him, that was exhibited to no one else. 

Besides the human members of our party, there were 
a dozen dogs of high and low degree. Mike had two ; 



THE CAMP FIRE. 25 

they were long-eared, sad-looking hounds, with fierce 
eyes. I had a couple ; one was a hound, and one a terrier. 
The negroes had four or five ; you could not tell pre- 
cisely how many, for they would appear and disappear 
like sprites, and sometimes one would be gone for a week 
or more, and then come to light at the most unexpected 
moment. The Doctor had one, and his name was Wag. 
Now there were two ways of seeing this dog, and there- 
fore two ways of describing it. If he should be regarded 
through the Doctor's eyes, he was a Gelert in courage, 
of the sagacity of a fox, and so graceful and beautiful, 
and of such winning ways, that all the world loved him. 
But anf one else in speaking of him would have called 
him a rusty, ragged, ill-tempered mongrel, with an elfish 
disposition for mischief. He stole our food, he frightened 
our game, he howled away our sleep, and whenever 
he saw vengeance coming he slunk away to his master's 
protection. He knew he did evil, and, with one eye 
on his pursuer, and his tail wagging, he would stand 
until standing was no longer safe, and then run for his 
life. Why the Doctor loved that dog I never could 
divine. He said he found him when a pup, and rescued 
him from some boys who had a rope around his neck pre- 
paratory to givmg him a swmg; if so, his humanity 
brought sad discredit on the canine race. 

It is beyond the scope of my story to describe the toils 
and successes of each day in the campaign which had 
commenced that morning. Scenes of hourly interest to 
the actor, and adventures which to the hunter and 



Zb WILD BPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

naturalist would be beyond expression exciting, would 
be dull to the reader. Therefore, in a long winter's trip, 
that extended from the Suwanee River almost to Oke- 
chobee Lake, I can only recall those scenes that remained 
most strongly on my mind after the lapse of months, 
and which sometimes, when my brain is most active, 
will come ^ip to me in my dreams, when in sleep I hear 
the wash of waves and the ringing music of hounds and 
guns, and the frantic rush of the chase in the deep ever- 
glades of the Seminoles. Yet there are many little 
minutiae of an extended hunt to explain, as they form the 
regular duties of camp life. 

After the breakfast has been dispatched, the one sauce- 
pan, one coffee-pot, and two tin coffee cups, are neatly 
cleaned, the two little vagabond horses which are pos- 
sessed by the party are caught and led uj) with leading 
ropes around their necks. They are vicious, ragged-look- 
ing little beasts, but invaluable as pack-horses. On their 
backs we strap a couple of blankets folded in half; over 
that a little open frame-work, in which and to which we 
may fasten anything that is to be carried. This novel 
pack-saddle resembles a kitchen chair turned upside 
down. In it is put the little box containing our salt, 
pepper, vinegar, cloves, lard, etc., little matters, but of 
great use — we familiarly called the box*' the kitchen;'' 
also a small keg of powder, a bag of shot, another of bul- 
lets, caps, needles, thread, scissors, etc., then a joint of 
venison, or a turkey, or any article of food, the Doctor's 
trophies, skins of birds, skulls of animals, or strange 



THE CAMP FIRE. 27 

flowers or sketches. Then the coffee-pot, frying-pan, 
etc., are hung on the perpendicular legs of the saddle, 
two axes are strapped to the sides, and the ponies move 
off after making two or three malicious kicks at the dogs 
and bystanders. Mike leads the van with a cat-like 
motion, his long rifle lymg on his arm, and followed by 
his dogs. I generally came next in line, then the negroes 
and the ponies, and then the Doctor. We passed for the 
most of our tune through an open pine country with 
a sandy soil. Here and there a grove of closer vegeta- 
tion could be seen, and now and then a pool of water, 
surrounded by o.aks and cypress, but generally the long 
vistas of slender trees would only be interrupted by some 
climbing plant, or the high knolls that traversed the 
country, following the general course of the drainage of 
the water. We only made one march a day of about 
eight hours, and then selecting some spot for the beauty 
of its location, or the abundance of its game, we pitched 
our camp, built our fire, turned out our horses, that is to 
say our ponies, and made ourselves as much at home as 
though we never expected to change. There were many 
days that we never broke up our camp, for the great 
abundance of game would entice us to stay, and then our 
resting-place gradually assumed a very comfortable 
appearance. A tent of boughs carpeted with skins, a 
a substantial fire, a well-stored larder, a pine slab table, 
and the Doctor, half reclining, smoking his pipe, and 
watching the frying joint, lest Wag should steal it, formed 
an agreeable picture of contentment in low life, and made 



^8 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

one marvel how few are the necessaries in this world 
essential to our happiness. 

Several times we had our domestic privacy intruded 
upon by our rustic neighbors during our absence, and 
once in a way that ruffled the Doctor's good humor very 
unusually. The camp had been left at early morning as 
usual, and from the ridgepole of our tent was suspended 
a sandhill crane, recently killed, and waiting for a cook- 
mg. In returning, toward the dusk of the evening, the 
negroes had separated to drive in the ponies, and the 
Doctor was leading the van, and talking of his bird, the 
sandhill crane, which at that season of the year was very 
fat and delicate. The fire had gone almost out as we 
came up to the tent, but by its light we could see the 
little matters around in their usual condition. The Doc- 
tor laid down his gun against a tree, and, stooping dowil^, 
walked into the tent. At that instant there was a j^ur- 
ring growl. Poke was hurled over on his back, amid a 
cloud of feathers, and a big wild-cat came dashing out 
over the Doctor's prostrate body. 

" Oh ! ah !" sputtered the Doctor. " Catch him ! stop 
him ! The wretch has eaten my crane !" 

The dogs yelped ; I fired a flying shot, and with two 
or three rapid bounds the cat leaped up into a huge 
magnolia tree growing hard by, and with a corkscrew 
motion was soon lost to sight in the dense foliage that 
extended far above the level of the surrounding trees. 

On entering the cabin, I found Poke disconsolately 
sitting on his blanket, with the long bill of the crane in 



THE CAMP FIEE. 29 

his hand, the sole relic the cat had left him for his 
supper. 

It was a pleasant hour in the old woods, when our day's 
travel was ended, yve had pitched our tent and drawn up 
around our gipsy camp while the huge fire flickered and 
crackled and lit up the green dome of the woods. The 
tree trunks, for a long distance around, were lighted into 
rugged distinctness, and behind them remained the wall 
of shadow. The evening meal was ended. The negroes 
had curled themselves up to sleep, and the rest of the 
hunters settling themselves down to the easiest positions 
they could invent, drew forth their pipes, the universal 
solace to the Avanderer. The dogs still mumbled their 
bones, around the fire, with an occasional wrangle over 
some breach of canine etiquette, and the two ponies 
appeared once in awhile, when the flame blazed brightly, 
munching the wild grass that grew around. 

It was the hour for meditation, and my mind, blandly 
composed by the fatigues of the day, the glowing light, 
and the voluptuous climate, wandered back through 
misty years. I saw the blue crisp waves of distant lakes, 
and my hand held the tiller, and dear old faces looked 
up at me from the thwarts of a swiftly sailing boat. My 
cheek felt the free wind, my eyes filled with moisture, I 
heard voices that " murmured proud pleasure soft and 
low," and then I heard " zee-zee-zee-zip !" Ah, misery ! 
what a mosquito ! And there is another — has been sit- 
ting on my cheek for ten minutes, and I didn't see it. 



so WILD SP0ET3 IN THE SOUTH. 

And now that I am listening I hear them on every side 
zee-zee-zeeing all around me, and every moment taking 
a nip. Oh, I see how it is ! I forgot to light my pipe. 
There are Poke and Mike in undisturbed dreams of 
tobacco and glory, smiling famtly at my convulsive slaps. 
Now my pipe is lighted — no more nips, blessed j)ipe. 
Why are mosquitoes created ; and what do they feed on 
when they can't get blood ? Please answer me an oft- 
repeated thought, sage frequenters in Southern swamps. 

" Charlie, do you know what an alhgatoris?" drawled 
out the Doctor, after he saw me fairly roused to the com- 
fort of the pipe. 

" ISTo, do you ?" I replied. 

" Not precisely, but I came very near knowing to-day. 
I was stooping to gather a strange flower on the bank of 
the river, when the earth caved in with me, and let me 
down with a fearful thump upon an old alligator that was 
sunning himself beneath. He gave a snort, and plunged 
into the river, and if he was half as frightened as I, he 
will never come ashore again." 

" Pooh, man ! why didn't you take him by the legs 
and lay him over on his back ?" 

" Oh, I hadn't the time ; he wouldn't wait." 

" Doctor Poke was up the bank before the alligator 
could see him," said Mike, in a low quizzical voice. 

" Oh Poke ! for shame, to decline a fair fight!" said I. 

"Who wants to fight with such a huge dragon? 
N"ot you, I warrant !" 

" Whar your pup alligators ?" said Mike to the Doctor. 



THE CAMP riKE. 31 

"Bless me, I forgot them!" exclaimed the Doctor, 
divmg his hands up to his elbows in his capacious poc- 
kets ; out came bits of thread, seeds of plants, little tin 
boxes, claws of birds, and finally two or three young 
alligators, about the size and shape of small daggers. 
They were of a mottled chocolate and yellow color, and 
feeling the genial effect of the fire, commenced scram- 
bling around like tortoises. The Doctor, with a hand on 
each knee, regarded them with unfeigned delight, and 
Mike, between his puffs of tobacco, looked on the scene 
with a quirk in his cheek. 

" Mammalia, oviparous, amphibious," enunciated the 
Doctor. 

Just then one of the little annuals inserted his nose 
under Caasar's neck, as he lay snoring by the fire, and 
commenced wriggling himself into the woolly retreat. 

" Bress de Lord !" shouted Ca3sar, springing to his 
feet ; " what am dat yer pizen little varmint — what fur 
you cum here, hey ?" 

Seeing our laughter, he shook himself, and going to 
the other side of the fire, rolled up again like a ball, pull- 
ing his blanket over his head, and went to sleep as 
soundly as before. 

"Charlie, do you see that alligator's tail ?" said the 
Doctor, as he pointed with the mouth-piece of his pipe at 
the caudal extremity of one of the little brutes, as it lay 
on the warm sand. I admitted that I did, first because 
it was true, and next because I saw the Doctor was in 
a humor to talk, and I did not want to contradict him. 



32 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

" Now tell me why it is that this animal should have 
such a big tail, for so small a body, when any one knows 
he can't wag it with any pleasure ?" 

" Couldn't say, Poke." 

" Can't you imagine, then ?" 

" Ornament," I blandly suggested. 

" Ornament, indeed ! Now, I have been studying 
these mammalia to-day. Mike and I went down Black 
Bayou after bear tracks, and I saw he was going further 
than I fancied, so I sat down to watch the alligators 
lying on the opposite bank. I then noticed that an alli- 
gator, when he came to the bank and heard the others 
grunting in the reeds, climbed up as far as he could go 
with his short legs, and then bending his tail under him, 
against the beach, by that means, with a single jerk, 
threw himself up on the bank. Now, therefore, as these 
animals live chiefly on streams with low perpendicular 
banks, as they, by this example, do mount the bank with 
the assistance of their tail, and as nothing was made for 
naught, ergo, their tails were made to climb banks 
with." 

" As these animals frequently scratch themselves with 
their hind feet, and as nothing was made for naught, 
ergo, their hind feet were made to scratch themselves 
with." 

" That is sheer malevolence," retorted Poke. " You 
try to take away my cane and don't ofier another." 

" I did. I consider the tail an ornament, of as much 
use as the tail of a mouse or a turkey gobbler." 



THE CAMP FIRE. 33 

" And why should so cruel a monster, hidden in these 
solitudes, have his person decorated ?" 

" And why should the flowers bloom in the ever- 
glades with the same glory of odor and color as they do 
in the Tuileries ?" 

" There you go again. You are never kept down to 
the practical bearings of nature." 

" I warrant you that these negro boys would coincide 
with me, and give the true reason. Caesar ! Caesar ! you 
sleepy-head. Explain to us the use of the alligator's 
tail." 

" Wha's dat, maussa ?" 

" What does the alligator do with his tail ?" 

" Suck um in de winter." 

" You fool — you know better than that." 

" Dat so fur true, maussa. Maussa Poke, nebber see 
little alligator in de egg, just gwine to hatch, hey ? Den 
he see little alligator wid his tail in his mouf, and when 
he cum out de egg den he take him tail out of him mouf 
and eat hop-toads, and debil-bugs, and sich like, till win- 
ter cum on, and den he curl up in de mud and suck tail 
agm till hot time cum agui." 

" Oh, Doctor, there you have it, an explanation by a 
child of nature. I hope you are content." 

" Csesar, you're a fool !" said the Doctor sententiously. 

" Caesar ain't fool nudder," interposed Scipio, raising 
his curly head from behind his comrade. " Ef he don't 
pickle young alligators, he sees 'em and knows suthin or 
nudder." 



34: WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

This retort was hailed with a volley of applause, and 
even Mike smiled at the Doctor's discomfiture. 

Scip, evidently elated with his success, continued : " I 
knows alligator from time I picaninny. I knoAvs alliga- 
tor tail's good to eat. Course he sucks 'em. Alligator's 
science varmint, and when he roars in de spring-time 
he knows what he roarin' bout ; ain't no fool, nud- 
der, and makes speech wiser'n the judge in 'lection 
times." 

" What does he say, Scip ?" 

" Maussa ask ole Aunty Foko what he say. She's got 
witch roots, and she knows how to talk alligator. She 
stay out all night in Oke'fnokee swamp, alligator neber 
so much as looks to her. She tell me what alligator say 
to his picaninnies." 

" Don't, maussa, ketch me tellin' bout alligator and 
them little alligators layin' there wid ears wide open. 
'Morrow mornin they'll be in the ribber, and ole alliga- 
tors know all bout me." 

" Well we will stop that, by carrying them away." 
So the little eavesdroppers were taken by the tails and 
dropped into the nearest watercourse, and the super- 
stitious negro looked all about him with sus23icious 
glance, rolled over to a more comfortable attitude, and 
commenced his story : 

" You see Aunty Foko 's Guinea nigger, cum ober 
from Cuba, but after her boy he gin out, she don't work 
any more, and tuck to de swamp. She be older'n Cajsar 
an me, boff togedder, and her hair a'mos' white. She 



THE CAMP FIRE. 35 

know de pizens, and she know all de woods, an' day an' 
night is all de same to her ; an' she knows medicine to 
throw huntin' dogs off her track, an' nobody kin ketch 
her. An' she tell dis child all what alligator say, an' so 
I knows. Alligator lay he eggs m de sand, and den 
when dey hatch out on some blazin' hot day little alliga- 
tors cut streeks fur de water right off; dat's all seen of 
em till night. Night cum, an' ole alligator dat keep 
watch cum up on de sand-bank, an' he find de little alli- 
gators all hatch out. Den he turn round and commence 
to croak little : nuffin come ; he croak little louder, nuffin 
come ; den he stand up on he toes and he roar like all 
natur. It makes de water shake ; den young alligators 
cum, an' ole marm aUigator cum, an' dey all stand dere 
togedder, an' ef de moon is shinen it's real savage fur to 
see 'em. An' de ole alligator he takes de chair, an' he 
tells em, and dis is jes what he tells em, I knows it's so, 
and so does Aunty Foko ; 

" ' You young alligators, you great fools ! you tink 
you sumthin an' you aint nuttin. You live half de time 
on land, t'other half de time in bayou, an' so you ben't 
smart m nudder. You be so loggish-like in de water 
you can't ketch fishes, and you got such little legs on 
land you can't come up to nuttin. N'ow you must larn, 
and when you've larnt then you'll know suthin. And I'll 
give you a teacher and he's de possum.' 

" When de ole alligator says dis. all de young ones 
larf, for dey knows what a possum is, for dey seed em a 
pokin' long the b'yous and dey's clined to de pinion dat 



36 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

possum's a fool. Bat de ole alligator growls em down 
an' den he say : 

" ' Possum, he great ammal ; not kase he fast, for he 
bery slow ; not kase he strong and km fight, for he bery 
weak ; but kase he's sly. When he sees anythin' cumin 
he make b'lieve sleep an' ketch em. When he get 
ketched heself he make b'lieve dead, an' dey let him go. 
Now you all play possum.' 

'' Den ole alligator send all de picaninnies back in de 
water an' dey grow bery smart. An' dey learn to lay in 
de grass for sumthin to cum long nice, an' den gobble em 
up. An' dey roll in de mud till gets all covered, an' den 
cum up in de sun to get dry, an' . nobody take him for 
alligator, an' would cum an' sit right down on em, an' 
den he grab em. An' after a while he gets so he lays 
side to de water, little piece back, an' wdien anyting 
cums along de bank, he hit him a slap wid his tail an' 
knock em in de water, and den he slide in after an' eat 
cm up, an' de only ting he won't hurt 'tall is de possum. 
Possum nebber gits ketched 'tall, an' dat am a fac." 

Before the negro's fable had ended, one by one his 
auditors' pipes had gone oul The fire had burned low, 
and shadow^s, not parlor shadows, but huge ghostly shad- 
ows, went and came among the forest aisles as the fire 
flickered high and low. -In Scipio's legend I remembered 
my first experience with alligators, and as it is of a kin 
with the legend, and as Scip, immediately after his recital 
travelled aw^ay to the land of dreams, I will describe it : 

I v/as visiting a friend some years ago who lived on 



THE CAMP FIEE. 87 

one of the many banks of Alabama on the Gulf coast, and 
whose plantation was intersected by several little creeks. 
One of these inlets was quite near the house, and the 
morning after my arrival, while dressing at my window, 
I saw a large alligator crawl out of the water and settle 
himself down on the grassy bank on the other side of this 
creek. Between the house and the creek was a rice 
field, and the rice bank built along this inlet intercepted 
all view except from the upper part of the house, so I 
would have an easy approach. 

Immediately I seized my double-barrel shot gun, and 
loaded it with the heaviest size shot I could find in my 
room, descended the stairs, and made my way across the 
rice-field to the rice bank, and there lay my prize on the 
other side of the creek, wholly unconscious of his fate. 
He was a huge beast, with scales glistening in the rising 
sun, and his big yellow eye shining like a golden pipj)in. 
After a moment's survey and a mental congratulation 
that there was a creek separating me from the monster, 
I took aim at the largest part of his body and fired. I 
heard a splash in the w^ater, and when the smoke cleared 
away the waves showed me the spot where my friend had 
disappeared, and after waiting some time to see if he 
would float ashore dead, I gave it up and went back 
discomfited. As I entered the house I saw a dozen 
grinning rows of teeth at the kitchen window, and Avas 
thus made aware that the negroes were enjoying the 
spectacle of my skill in hunting. 

At breakfast my friends questioned me about my shot. 



38 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH 

which they had evidently heard of from the servants, and 
I learned, for the first time, that I could only kill the 
alligator with a ball, and even with that it was no certain 
matter. I also was informed that this particular alligator 
had frequented that spot for several years, and was well 
known on the plantation by the name of John Bull. 

The next morning as I rose I incontinently cast my 
eye over to the bayou, and there, in the full enjoyment 
of the glories of the sunrise, lay my yesterday's acquain- 
tance. It did not take me three minutes to get into my 
clothes and down to the rice bank. I saw the grinning 
waiters at the door, but I did not care, for I was armed 
with a rifle and sure of my game. I took a rest on the 
high bank, and sighting for a big chocolate spot on his 
side, I fired away. A wheeze, like a plethoric alderman, 
came from across the creek, and wdth a mighty splash 
the animal slid into the river, and the dark waters closed 
over him. I knew I had not missed him, but, as he did 
not rise, I supposed him dead at the bottom. 

" Well, Charlie, my boy, how's the shooting to-day ?" 
was the hearty salutation of my host as I took my seat at 
breakfast. A suppressed giggle, behind me, informed 
me that the negroes were enjoying the joke, and I had 
to explain it as best I could, which I did, by assuring my 
friend that the alhgator w^as dead at the bottom of the 
river. 

" How's that, Johnson ? Do you think you can find 
his body ?" said my friend to his huntsman, as he came 
in to get his orders for the day. 



THE CAMP FIKE. 6\) 

" Find his body, sah ? ' Yes, sah, easy nuff find his 
body, sah ; de body crawled up on de bank before de 
genleman got quite in the house, sah." 

Every one laughed at me, and I did not forget the 
mishap until I became engaged in shooting, in which we 
spent all the day. The next day was a repetition of pre- 
cisely the same farce, except that the conduct of the ser- 
vants became quite extraordinary, laughing outright, as I 
went across the rice-iield, and the little nigs came out 
of the cabins in crowds, and crowed with delight. 

" Well, Charlie, my boy, how's the shooting to-day ?" 
became a stereotype question at the table, and " tough 
as an alligator, hey?" one of the commonest com- 
parisons. 

At last my patience and my visit were finished 
together, and as I was being pulled out to meet the 
Mobile steamer in my friend's canoe, manned by eight 
as good oarsmen as ever pulled a blade, in passing by 
the head of the creek a heavy splash was heard in the 
water, and my friend Avhispered to me, loud enough to 
create a chuckle among the boatmen, " There's your 
target, you have left behind." 



40 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER III. 

A BEAK IN THE CAMP. 

I'll pitch my tent on dis camp ground 

A few days, and a few days, 
Till I give old Cuff annudder round, 
A few days, and a few days. 

Wake, snakes, day's a breaking. 

Negro Ballads. 

After one or two days of quiet southward travel, some- 
times verging toward the seaside, sometimes turning into 
the back country, we came one day on the banks of the 
Wakassare River, a deep, black stream that empties into 
the Gulf. ISTo fording place being discovered, we halted 
preparatory to crossing the river. As this is an every- 
day exploit in travelling a new country, as much tra- 
versed by sluggish streams as the Florida peninsula, a 
description will not be unimportant. 

Picture to the eye of fancy a camp, with all its acces- 
sories of rustic comfort, its bright fire, its feeding ponies, 
dogs, and hunters under thfe pine woods. Before it 
a close hummock of tangled vines, and tall trees border- 
ing the bank of the river, and the long vines pendent 
from the branches. Beyond this leafy barrier, turbid 
with the gleanings of swamps, with whirl and glassy 



A BEAR IN THE CAMP. 41 

eddy, the dark tide of the river moves onward to 
the sea, trailing with it the floating skirts of moss 
that still cling to the trees. On the far side a dense 
canebrake arises from the low bank, from whose fast- 
nesses, as the shadows settled on the view, came forth 
the quacking of ducks and the booming of bittern. 

On such a scene we looked one afternoon, and forth- 
with began our preparations for crossing. Selecting from 
the fallen pine trees one or two logs of medium size, we 
cut them in uniform lengths, and dragged them to the 
water's edge, where they were bound in couples with 
grape-vine wythes. After having having made several 
couples, they were gently launched over the drifting 
wood and tangled roots that cluttered up the side of the 
river, and were all connected together with a rope, and 
then tied to a tree. This was our ark, and on it were 
placed, first of all, the powder and other ammunition, and 
Mike, as captain, and the two negroes as crew, each 
armed with a long pole and a rude paddle, began the first 
trip. First fastening the end of a long rope to a tree on 
the shore from whence they started, they poled out until 
the depth of the water prevented them from touching 
bottom, and then with the paddle slowly worked their 
way to the opposite bank. Then commenced the difii- 
culty. The tall canes grew down into the water, and 
presented a barrier to the entrance of so obtuse a vehi- 
cle as a raft ; and though they might be pushed aside 
sufficiently to eifect an entrance, they would spring up 
on every side, and hedge the pioneers in an inclosure as 



42 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

tight as a bird-cage. To meet this difficulty, Mike sat 
down on the bow of the raft, and with a hatchet cut away 
the reeds, as the negroes poled the raft, until a narrow 
lane was cut through to terra, fir ma ^ and the men landed 
with the munitions. Here selecting a sturdy cabbage pal- 
metto, they fastened the other end of the rope securely, 
thus making a taut line entirely across the river, and 
throwing away both poles and paddle, by means of 
the rope pulled back to the shore from which they 
started. 

l^ext came the ponies' turn, and with much coaxing, 
and some pushing and pulling, one of their equine high- 
nesses was brought on board the raft and pulled to the 
other shore, where, when he was loosened, he quickly 
disappeared in the reeds. Sometimes we made him swim 
by the side of the raft, but it was a dangerous attempt in 
large rivers on account of the alligators that were tempted 
to nibble at the legs so invitingly ]3addling above them. 

The third trip brought the other pony, wdio, by liis 
obstinacy, came near breaking up the raft ; and, finally, 
I rode over with the balance of the camp equipage and 
the dogs, that had to be tied up at the beginning of the 
operations to prevent them swimming, which, had they 
attempted, they would certainly have been lost by the 
rapaciousness of the alligators, that even in the early fall 
were still very active in all the rivers. 

Lastly the raft was sent back empty, with Scipio to 
unfasten the end of the rope. He, after casting off the 
rope, pulled himself leisurely ashore with the slack line, 



A BEAU m THE CAMP. 43 

and taking off the rope that had been used in the con- 
struction of the raft, he followed us back from the river 
to where we had pitched our camp for the night. 

While coming through the canebrake, Mike, with an 
indication of his finger, and a quiet smile, pointed out the 
track of a bear impressed in the soft mud ; his huge paw 
and leg left a print as though a man had walked by 
on his knees. The Doctor stepped around his mark 
rather suspiciously, and, I noticed, looked back at it as 
though suspecting his bearship might retrace his steps. 
The dogs were still tied, and they threw up their noses 
and whined piteously, but it was too near night, and we 
would not let them loose. The marsh was alive with 
ducks, and the grey egret, with his long crest, would 
constantly rise around us with a whoop of surprise. 
Indeed, the whole bottom was trodden up with the tracks 
of deer, turkey, and the smaller game that find refuge in 
these close coverts. 

After making our camp, and as the darkness drew, its jj^ 
curtains around us, shutting in the bright firelight, and 
shutting out the void of darkness beyond, all the natives 
of the forest and river lifted up their voices in concert. 
Each bird or beast that dwelt in these heavy brakes 
uttered his individual note, and while smoking one's 
l^ipe, lying by the fire, the mind amused itself lis- 
teuing to the confused cries and distinguishing thein one 
fromthe other. The ducks quacked and fluttered in the 
marsh, the raccoon's plaintive call sounded its decrescendo 
from the wood, the honk of the heron, the shrill clatter 



44 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

of the rail, the mournful howl of the wolf, ascended in 
turn, or in a confused medley, now low, now high^ as the 
wind rose or fell, and all up and down the river the bel- 
lowing of the alligator domineered over every other 
gound, with its huge volume of noise. Then there were 
other sounds that played low accompaniments to the bass 
of the river. The occasional twitter of a bird, the drops 
of the chinquapen nut, the j^atter of the dew falling from 
the trees, and the rustle of the leaves, all joined in that 
nocturnal anthem that was swelling from every rood of > 
ground on the great Peninsula, and entered into our 
souls by the Wakassare with the mysterious lulling 
influence with which nature's chorus affects the human 
mind, where it is left open to the whisperings of the wild 
creations of God. 

The day dawned reluctantly the mornmg after our 
crossing, and so slowly the light broke through the mist 
that environed the camp, that it was more like moonshine 
than daylight. Drip, drip, drip, pattered the gathering 
moisture from the cypress trees into the pools beneath. 
The osier-grass bent down, heavy with the dew, the ferns 
were matted to the earth, and the glassy leaves of the 
ma2:nolia crlinted with a double lustre of sheen and water. 
" Like a sea fog landward bound," the warm fog shut us 
in, as did a few hours before, the darkness. The voices 
of the night were hushed with the dawning, and all ani- 
mal life was motionless, save where, now and then, from 
the invisible heights of the tree-tops, some moving ani- 
mal would shake down showers of drops. 




^-: ^''' /'! 



A. BEAR IN THE CAMP. 45 

One by one the negroes came to life, and yaTvning and 
muttering gathered together the remains of the fire. 
The Doctor raised himself on his elbow, and benignantly 
surveyed the dull circuit of a dozen yards that the mist 
left open to his vision. The dogs snuffed the air wist- 
fully, looked into the trees, and sauntered out into the 
mist, looming as large as the ponies as soon as they 
gained a little distance. In a moment a sharj) yelp was 
heard from one of the smaller dogs. Again, after a 
pause, another, then a prolonged " yeough " from an old 
hound. 

" Whas dat are !" said Scipio, raising his curly pate 
from the coals that he was vigorously trying to blow into 
a blaze. 

" iSTebber you attendsiate to the dogs, you lazy nigger ; 
you cook," retorted his comrade, and Scipio renewed his 
puffing. 

" Geow-ou-ou-ou !" roared out all the dogs in chorus, 
with a burst of clamor that awakened the sleepers, and 
before any one could get to his*feet a huge black bear, 
that appeared as big as a bull, dashed out of the fog, 
followed by all the dogs in full cry, right through the 
camp, scattering the fire, overthrowing Scipio in the 
ashes, scaring the ponies from their tethers, and leaving 
the Doctor sprawling on his back. 

" Bress de Lord !" shouted the negro, scrambling out 
of the coals ; " did de Lord ebber sec like o' dat ?" 

" Tally-ho !" echoed the Doctor, hurriedly snatching 
an axe. 



46 WILD SPOKTS m THE SOUTH. 

" After him !" shouted Mike , and with cheer and cry 
every soul dashed out in pursuit, and the camp that stood 
so picturesquely still in its first awakening, after the one 
rude rush of the chase was left deserted, while we fol- 
lowed the wide trail and frantic cry of the hounds. 

The game, immediately after crossing the camp, 
turned toward the river, and entered the dense canebrake 
that fringed the shore for some miles. The hounds bayed 
and yelled with excitement, and hunters and negroes fol- 
lowed helter-skelter, now over grassy holes, starting the 
duck from her covert, now over slii^pery trunks of fallen 
trees 'that had been floated by the water, and left to 
molder green in the damp. One moment held back by 
a vine, at another so crowded by the reeds as to be 
obliged to lean down and run like a rail. One moment 
the crashing of reeds and baying of the hounds were 
close to us ; then again they would gain on us ; but far or 
near, we went plunging and rushing forward with a sense 
of intentness that gave no thought to anythmg but the 
chase. Soon we became separated ; one man, plunged 
into a slough to his waist, was left to extricate himself; 
another was turned here, another there, by intervening 
obstacles, and presently I was left alone, following 
always the fierce rush before me, that wound hither and 
thither among the reeds, now pausing as if at bay, and 
then rushing on to the right or the left, as the hunted 
animal was assailed by the dogs coming up from either 
side. 

Shortly there was a pause, and the prolonged 



A BEAR IN TIIE CAMP. 4:7 

" Oo-oo-o !" of the hounds proclanned the bear was at 
bay, and hastening in the direction, I came into a close 
thicket of canes that had sprung up as thick as wheat 
from the rich bottom land. 

I could hear the bear, before I came to him, snorting 
and grumbling with rage, and as I entered his covert, 
I saw him on his haunches, with his back against a 
bank, his eyes red, his mouth open, shedding foam in 
huge drops on the ground, and surveying the dogs that 
were ranged in a semicircle around him, panting with 
rage, and bearing marks of Bruin's claws that had evi- 
dently taught them discretion. 

But the greatest mark of respect to the grim wood- 
king was presented in the person of the Doctor. He sat 
directly in front of the bear, and scarcely six stej^s off; 
, his feet were half buried in the mud, and he was seated 
on the same easy cushion. His coat and vest were wide 
open, his hat was gone, his curly flaxen hair hung matted 
with sweat and dew, and his axe, that great weapon of 
offence and defence to the forest knight, was held in both 
hands directly in front of him, the handle sticking in the 
ground, and the blade pointing directly to the bear. If 
the bear's tongue was lolling, so was the Doctor's ; if the 
bear seemed out of breath with his chase, the Doctor was 
doubly so with his ; if Bruin disliked his position, the 
Doctor appeared more than uncomfortable in his. In his 
hurry he had tumbled down over the bank directly in 
front of the quarry, and what with the chase, and Avhat 
with the fright of this fearful juxtaposition, the bear was 



48 WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

in the better position of the two. The Doctor with his axe 
presented, and the bear rampant, with his fore paws just 
touching the toes of his hind ones as they projected up in 
front of him, resembled much some old coat of arms I 
had seen, only the Doctor's position was somewliat new 
in heraldry. 

" Hurrah !" I yelled ; " have at him!" 

" Eh — eh," said the Doctor, all out of breath, " shoot 
him — eh — eh — quick — eh !" 

I levelled my gun, and the bear's quick eye glanced 
at me fiercely over the barrel. I pulled the trigger, and 
a dull snap fo^owed ; the bear shook his head. Another 
snap, and another — my gun w^as wet Avith the dew. 

The bear thus insulted gave a low growl, and a quick 
toss to his sharj) nose. The dogs, construing this a chal- 
lenge, and emboldened by our presence, rushed forward, 
and the huge brute, with a skill that was incomprehen- 
sible, would box them ofi* with his fore-paws. One would 
be sent with a slap a dozen paces in the air ; another Avould 
get a long cut from the bear's sharp claws, as he sat up 
like a boxer knocking over children with a mischievous 
playfulness that seemed more like fun than malice. Wag 
was there, as pert as the best hound in the brake, yelp- 
ing, running, biting, and making much noise, and yet 
keeping out of danger. At length his turn came ; a 
well-directed blow of that big black paw sent him curled 
up like a kitten, and as senseless as a rag, into his mas- 
ter's arms. 

Poor Doctor ! this seemed to awaken him, and spring- 



A BEAR IN THE CA]MP. 49 

ing to his feet he aimed a blow at the hear's head, that, 
had it taken effect, would have cloven him in two, but a 
scarcely perceptible motion of the same black paw sent 
the axe flying away among the canes, while the Doctor, 
from the j)aiTying of the blow, came over on his face, 
and the bear, with a growl and crash, rushed off again 
into the canes, followed by the whole yelling pack. 

The Doctor, gathering himself together, picked up his 
axe, and listened with me to the lessening crash of the 
chase as it turned down the river, cry of dog, and crackle 
of brush, and now and then the whoop of the negroes, 
who had apparently come up with the chase. At length 
another pause, and then the peculiar notes of the hounds, 
and the calls of the negroes, told us the bear was again 
at bay, and, having recovered our breath, we started to 
overtake it. 

As we came in view of the spot selected by Bruin for 
his fight, we saw all the dogs gathered about the base 
of a tree, the elder ones squatted on their haunches, and 
the younger ones jumping up and snapping their teeth 
at the bear, who was comfortably seated on a huge limb, 
balancing himself with the skill of a dancer and the bur- 
lesque gravity of a comedian. The most urbane simpli- 
city marked his countenance ; he seemed of a character 
that would not have harmed a child, and if I had not seen 
him a few minutes before boxing the dogs with such vin- 
dictive vigor, I would have been willing to have climbed 
the tree, and put my arms around his neck. He looked 
down at us condescendingly, now and then winking his 

3 



50 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

eye blandly, and then with a dexterons use of his paw, 
he scratched his side, or rubbed his nose, when the flies 
tickled him. 

Presently Mike came up, with his rifle on his arm. A 
glance up in the tree, and he quietly took his seat on a 
log, remarking, as he did so, " He bear." 

" Oh ! what a murderous animal !" said the Doctor. 
"Look at my dog there ; how he has treated him." 

Sure enough, the dog was a living witness to bad 
treatment. He could just move, and when he lay down 
he gave one or two short yelps of'mingled pain and spite. 
Never was a dog more miserably punished ; had he been 
heavier he would have been killed, but as it was, he was 
only bruised, and woefully frightened. 

The Doctor looked grimly at the bear. " Shoot him, 
why don't you?" he continued to Mike; "just see him 
making fun of us all !" 

Mike wiped his rifle with his coat sleeve and raised it 
to his shoulder. A pause, and the clear ring of the shot 
was followed by a convulsive leap of the hunted animal, 
and a short, fierce cry, and crashing through the inter- 
vening limbs he came with a heavy, dull sound to the 
ground. We ran up to him; he did not move. The 
ball had entered his eye, and the bear was dead. 

I looked at Mike. With his still smile on his wrinkled 
face, he was carefully fitting a ball to his rifle. He didn't 
even glance at his prize. 



THE DANGEES OF FIEE HUNTING. 51 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE DANGERS OF FIRE-HUNTING. 

" The pass was steep and ragged, 

The wolves they howled and whined; 

But he ran like a whirlwind up the pass 

And left the wolves behind." 

Macaulay. 

" Mike, what kind of night would this be for fire- 
shooting ?" said the Doctor to that meditative Nimrod, 
who was busy serving up a moccasin by the light of the 
camp-fire, after a week of travel. 

" So, so," replied Mike, without looking up. 

" I am going, I think." 

No answer. Mike put on the mended moccasin, and 
drew off the other. 

"Do you think we can kill anything ?" 

" S'pose," replied Mike. 

" Come Charlie, let us try it for a little while." 

This was all a ruse on the part of Poke, in order to 
make Mike think our great hunt was an unpremeditated 
affair, and thereby increase the glory of killing so much 
game. It had been arranged between us during the 
day, that we would try fire-hunting that night. It 
promised to be a cloudy night, which was of great 



62 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

advantage, as it prevented the game from seeing any- 
thing of the hunters, and at the same time rendered 
their eyes more reflective when exposed to the torch- 
light. We had even gone so far as to make our pitch- 
pine torches, and the whole preparation was complete. 
It was a party of two — the Doctor and myself. There 
would be rather more interest in getting the game 
alone ; and beside that, Mike's opinion on fire-shooting 
was well-known, and we knew he w^ould not go with us 
— so constant a hunter scorned so primitive a snare as 
the one we proposed. The negroes we did not want, 
for the fewer in a party the better. So, one of us taking 
a gun, and the other carrying a torch, we left the camp. 

The boys were chuckling together as they watched us 
go, the dogs howled because they could not go with us, 
and Mike gave one of his expressive coughs, that said as 
plainly as words, " Now for it." 

We Avere soon outside of the glare of the camp-fire, 
the little creek was crossed, and our torch flashed 
brightly on the iaY)er trunks of the pine trees, the chmb- 
ing-vines, and the broad-leafed plants that grew by the 
pools of water. There was no wind, and, walkuig in the 
pine woods, there was no sound. Once in a long while, 
a sand-hill crane, disturbed in his wanderings, would be 
seen stalking away, with his red head high in air, like a 
sentry on duty; or the sudden motion of the under- 
brush would tell us that some one of the many little 
harlequins of the wood, that gambol most when men do 
feJeep, had fled from this unusual spectacle of a moving 



THE DANGERS OF FIKE HUNTING. 53 

light. But no deer rewarded our search ; no bear 
showed us his heavy coat. 

" Faith,", said the Doctor, " this romantic promenade 
is getting somewhat long." 

" Think of the deer, one buck will well pay us." 

" Fudge ! if there was no one to laugh at us, I would 
have turned back long ago. Give me the gun, and you 
take the light." 

Accordingly we changed positions — I going ahead, 
carrying the torch before me, in such a manner that it 
would throw the light ahead as much as possible, and 
none on our persons, and the Doctor received the gun. 
and took my place directly behind and shaded by my 
person. The night had become still darker, and a misty 
rain commenced falling. We had left the pine woods, 
after walking a couple of miles, and had come into a grove 
of lower timber. The long moss drooped in curtains, the 
odor of magnolias burdened the air, and every minute a 
denser copse would force us to turn aside from our route. 

" Hush !" whispered the Doctor, suddenly, Avith a 
spasmodic pull at my coat tail, " there's a deer." 

I was just wondermg at this absence of deer, and 
could not account for it, as it was a rare thing to go a 
mile in Florida without seeing one. 

" Where ?" I whispered ; " I don't see it." 

" Hush ! it has gone now ; but we will see it in a 
moment again." 

We advanced on tiptoe, both in body and expectation. 

" There ! there !" said the Doctor, pointing with his 



54 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

finger a little distance to the left ; but the luminous spot 
was gone before I hardly got my eye on it. 

We were in the very place for deer. A heavy wind- 
fall lay ahead of us, and the mingled trunks and twisted 
branches looked like the chevaux defrise to some great 
encampment. The flickering light made the shadows 
move back and forth with a spectral effect, as though 
dancing, and the hush of the forest was unbroken by any 
sound. Every moment, I exj)ected to see again the two 
phosiDhorescent stars that indicate the deer's eyes, and 
then the true shot would bring us the prize for our 
labor. It seemed a long time in coming again. 

" That deer must be very shy," whispered the Doctor, 
just above his breath. 

The next time, I saw it first. It was some distance 
ahead, and there were two ; but before I could point 
them out to my comrade, they had disappeared. Pres- 
ently, we saw it on one side of us. 

" Charlie, that's a will-o'-the-wisp," said Poke, in rather 
a subdued tone, " or the devil ; who ever heard of a 
deer going around so ?" 

"He is examining you to see what manner of man you 
are." 

*' Perchance it is some spirit of a departed buck, lead- 
ing us a wild chase to destroy. us." 

"There it is, right behind me, as I live!" ejaculated 
the Doctor, in evident trepidation. 

Sure enough, as I turned my head, I saw the two blue 
lights that indicate the reflecting lenses of the eye. The 



THE DANGERS OF FIEE HUNTING. 65 

Doctor was taking aim, but I noticed it was not very 
steady. He pulled the trigger — a dull snap announced 
a miss-fire. He pulled the other trigger — it snapped in 
the same way. The gun was wet with rain. 

" Was anything ever so provoking !" said Poke, as the 
eyes vanished in the darkness. 

" If it is the devil, he will have you now." 

^' How can you talk so," said the Doctor, with a strong 
accent on the " can." 

" There is your deer. Poke, in the windfall," said I, as 
I caught sight of the eyes moving rapidly along over the 
mass of timber that lay heaped and knotted together. 

" That's no deer," said Poke ; " no cloven-foot could 
ever go over that windfall that way. I would rather see 
the night huntsman of the Hartz Mountains than see 
those eyes again." As he was speaking, I saw in the 
inky darkness ahead of us, another pair of eyes, and two 
or three pairs on the left. The truth flashed on me. 
The scarcity of the deer, the proximity of the windfall, 
the restlessness of those baleful eyes, all gave me the 
clue — the wolves were around us. 

A word to Poke, and the affiair was explamed, and we 
stood still for consultation. We tried new caps on our 
gun ; but it was of no use, the cones were saturated with 
water. We turned toward the camj), but in our con- 
fusion we forgot the direction. To heighten the misery 
of the scene, our torch was almost burnt out — let that 
die. and the rest could be easily divined. 

We Avere standing, at the time, under a grove of small 



56 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

pecan trees, and at that instant a low snort was heard 
from the shadow near us, like the cough of a dog. 

Poke did not say a word; but, dropping the gun, and 
seizing a limb of one of the trees over his head, with an 
agility for which I had never given him the least credit, 
elevated himself to the crotch, about ten feet from the 
ground. 

I did not want to do anything of the kind, of course 
not ; I would rather have placed my back against a tree, 
and won a glorious death in battle against my numerous 
foes ; but, alack ! for a bad example, I dropped the torch, 
that broke in pieces in falling, and, clasping the nearest 
tree, which happened to be a medium-sized gum-tree, soon 
scrambled up to a place of safety. Lucky was it for me 
that I had that torch in my hand, for when it fell, it lay 
scattered around the base of the tree, still flickering and 
flashing in the darkness, and the animals that had sur- 
rounded us, as they saw their prey escaping, rushed for- 
ward with an angry noise ; they saw the glowing embers, 
and held back just long enough to permit my escape. As 
I drew myself up on the first limb, a rush of gratitude 
passed over my soul, and my feelings were as warm as a 
child's. Nothing could be seen, for the sombre forest shut 
out the little light there was in the atmosphere, but I 
heard the pattering of feet beneath my fortress, like fall- 
ing rain. Back and forward they came and went, and 
snorting sounds and champing teeth made the black night 
alive with imaginary shapes. I wondered how it fared 
with the Doctor, yet dared not call, for the uncertainty 



THE DANGERS OF FIKE HUNTING. 57 

was less fearful than the reality might be. I j)ictiired 
him fallen, dragged back from his half-attained refuge, 
and divided among the himgry pack; and the very noises 
below might be the mumbling of his bones, 

" While their white tusks crunched o'er his whiter skull, 
As it slipp'd through their jaws when their edge grew dull." 

At length I summoned courage, and called "Poke!" 

"Hulloa!" was the response — more grateful to my 
ear than any sound in the world. 

" How are you, my boy ?" I called again. 

"Safe, thank the Lord!" 

" What a disgraceful situation to be in, and how are 
we to get out of it ?" 

"I will be grateful if I can only keep in it; for this 
tree is so small, that the wolves can almost reach me 
when they jump; and, as I climbed up, one caught my 
coat-tail, and tore it entirely off." 

" Climb up higher, then." 

"I can't; the tree is so small that, when I get any 
higher, it bends over, and lets me down — oh dear !" 

" Haven't you your pistol with you ? Try and shoot 
one, and it may frighten them." 

" Oh, dear, no ; there are hundreds of them. Just 
look at them below !" 

I looked down, and surely I could see a drove of them. 
They were evidently the grey wolf, for, in spite of the 
darkness, I could, once in a while, detect their motions 
from their light coats. 

3* 



68 • WILD SPOKTS m THE SOUTH. 

Poke suggested they were phantom wolves and 
declared they were all white. 

All the fearful stories I had ever read, came coursing 
through my brain. I saw snow-buried huts snuffed 
out and ravished by these prowlers, and heard the shriek 
of the child, thrown from the sleigh by its fear-mad- 
dened mother, and many an old dream reshaped in my 
mind the terrors of nights of fever. Were we to be 
tired out by their devilish patience ? Was one gang to 
relieve another, until we wearily fell into their hot tainted 
jaws, thus to be hurled into oblivion? 

I shouted in the hope that some one might hear me ; 
but what good to shout in that midnight forest ? I heard 
a voice — it was Poke saying his prayers. I listened 
devoutly, but could offer none myself. 

When he had finished, I called to him. He answered 
faintly — 

" What is it ? speak quickly ; I can't hold on much lon- 
ger." 

" Fire your pistol ; do try, it may bring some help, 
even if it does not kill." 

" I will try," answered Poke. 

" There was a momentary pause, and then the sharp 
crack of a pistol was followed by the singing of a bullet 
close by my ear. By the flash, I saw Poke, hatless, and 
almost coatless, hanging on to the topmost branch of a 
young pecan, that bent with him like an orange-treo 
under a heavy load of fruit. With the report of the 
pistol, there was a scramble among the voracious crew at 



THE DANGERS OF FIRE HUNTING. 69 

our feet; but they did not go away permanently, and 
were back in a moment. 

" Fire the other barrel, dear Poke, but try and fire it 
the other way — point it down." 

Bang ! sounded the pistol, and I heard a thump on the 
ground, as the poor fellow threw away the now useless 
weapon. 

" Hold on, Poke ; take heart, my dear boy." 

" Oh, it is easy enough to say take heart, but when the 
tree bends a little more than usual, I am within a foot of 
these hell-hounds. Oh, dear !" 

At this moment, I thought I saw a light flashing 
through the foliage. A moment more, I was sure of it. 

" Poke, Poke, they are coming — some one is coming." 

" Where — where ! Oh, dear, I can't turn my head, 
lest I slip off," 

" There they come ; I see them — three torches, and 
men and dogs." 

" God bless them !" I heard Poke say, faintly. 

I was afraid he was fainting. " Hold on. Poke," I said, 
and screaming to the men, I called them to hurry. On 
they came, at a run. I recognized them as they came up 
with their torches flashing through the woods; they 
were Jackson and his men. He had been in our camjD 
only the day previous, and told us he had a sheep farm 
in this neighborhood. " Quick, this way," I shouted — 
"the wolves! the wolves!" He answered me. How 
blessed a thing was the sound of a human voice in our 
necessity. They came under the trees we were in. 



60 WILD SFOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

" HuUoa there ! where are you ? where are the 
wolves ?" he shouted m his stentorian tones. 

" Dare's de sheep I'm bin hnntin' all dis bressed night," 
exclaimed a negro who accompanied Jackson on his 
search. 

I looked aromid, and there was Jackson's big flock of 
sheep, staring blandly at us up in the trees, and at their 
master, by turn. It had been their eyes we had seen in 
the darkness. 

And there was Jackson see-sawing on a fallen tree — 
hiccoughing, and laughing and crying by turns — and there 
were the negroes, and they called in the sheep, " Ho ! 
ho ! ho ! Oh laws a maussy, did I ever — ho ! ho ! ho ! 
ho ! — wolves, oh laws a maussy !" 

Poke slid down the tree he was in, picking up his coat- 
tail, that had been torn off by a broken limb in his 
hurried, ascent, sighing : 

" Oh ! that I had the wings of a dove/* 



THE PLANTATION HOUSE OF " FAR AWAY." CI 



CHAPTER V. i 

THE PLANTATION HOUSE OF " FAR AWAY.'^ 

"Ofttimes, in travelling through the west, 
The stranger finds a Hoosher's nest. 
In other words, a Buck-eye cabin 
Just big enough to hold Queen Mab in." 

Jackson, the sheep-raiser, whose timely arrival had 
driven away the phantom wolves, was a fair examj^le of 
many a planter. He was tall in figure, samiteriug in 
gait, wearing a black beard and moustache, and hair so 
long as to be confined behind his ears. His hazel eyes 
were large and expressive, flashing with excitement, or 
quizzical with mirth, his face was sallow, his lips thin and 
stained with tobacco, his dress loose, and extravagant 
in color when he was where he could select it. His man- 
ners were like his dress, and he seemed reckless of all 
appearances as to what he said or did. He was wealthy, 
after his kind ; that is to say, he had dogs and horses 
Avithout number, and "men-servants and maid-servants 
were born in his house," and he owned, by inheritance, 
acres of land enough to have made him a duke in Rhine- 
land ; and yet for ready money he was poor as Peter the 
Hermit. Debts he had many, but they did not depress 



62 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

him ; friends by hundreds, who would every one of them 
have gone his security for a million, yet could not have 
loaned him a hundred dollars in a month. He lived in a 
low, badly-built, wind-cracked, fenceless, vineless, paint- 
less mansion in the Pine Lands, yet the proudest chief 
of all the McGregors could not have equalled the cour- 
teous pride of manner with which he welcomed the 
stranger to his home, and made him his friend. I^o mat- 
ter for the rickety table ; he scorned to mend it, and no 
one saw its defects, it was so gracefully presided over. 
He never alluded to the food he asked you to eat, and 
you never saAV it was only pork, sweet potatoes, and 
corn bread. He was bountiful with the choicest wine, 
lavish of command, and never by any possibility did any 
labor that could be either deferred or avoided. Yet, for 
all that, he was an ardent hunter. Strange to say, all 
lazy people love to fish or hunt, and Macpherson Andrew 
Jackson loved the latter. Nor bush, nor savannah, nor 
river, nor heat, nor ram deterred him. He would ride 
where mortal man could ride, just for the fun of the 
hunt. So we camped by the side of his house, in com- 
pliance with an invitation from the proprietor, to spend 
a few days with him in pursuit of the chase. 

Jackson's palace was of one story and two wings, and 
the whole building was raised from the ground about 
three feet by means of wooden posts, which left a pleasant 
abiding-place beneath for whole broods of young negroes 
that constantly lay in this novel kennel, looking out like 
}-oung puppies. The cyperus grass grew sparsely in the 



THE PLANTATION HOUSE OF " FAK AWAY." 63 

white, sandy soil around the house, and the few out-build- 
ings that straggled hither and yon. Fences there were 
none, but the overshadowing live oaks, with their trail- 
ing moss, gave an air of grace to the establishment that 
man never attempted to improve. 

"HuUoa!" cheered the lord of the manor, as we drew 
up to the house a few days after our misadventure with 
the sheep; "glad to see you at Far Away. The 
door is never shut, and the bottle never corked, and we 
will make you at home for a year and a day. You Tom ! 
Cuff! You Cuff! Hannibal! here, run call the boys to 
take the horses and tie up the hounds. Run, all of you ! 
Fine day, this, for hunting. Bring out some glasses, 
Melissa ! Dogs can nose well to-day. Lively th'ere ! 
Well, bring some tin cups, if there are no glasses, you 
lazy huzzy !" 

The negroes ran, our dogs howled acquaintance with 
the dogs of the place, the little nigs looked on from every 
out-of the-way corner, and with shout, and laugh, and 
much confusion, we soon had our tent pitched by the 
spring, the ponies tethered, and everything well regu- 
lated about us. Then came a good dinner, cooked in one 
of those little disconnected kitchens so favored by your 
true darky cook, who, when not engaged in stirring the 
pepper pot, or turning the corn-bread, stands in her red 
bandana in the doorway with her arms akimbo, looming 
as large as the wonderful fat woman in the Museum. 
We brought game, and Jackson had cooks, «nd we all 
dined well, and then a glass of good old wine, whose 



64: WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

parent stock shaded the gravelly banks of the Garonne, 
carried our mmds to other lands, and sent our tongues 
travelling all around the world for adventures. 

It was dark as we finished tlie bottle, and Jackson un- 
locked his closet for another. I believe that wine-closet 
was the only thing that Avas locked on the whole place. 
The negroes had crawled out of their curious retreats, 
and were lying around in groups. The sheep-drivers had 
come in from the folds, and the tinkling of tiny bells 
announced that the sheep were penned for the night. 
The camp-fire was lit, pipes were smoking, Jackson was 
sitting against one of the pack-saddles, and his daughter 
was reclining against his knees. His daughter was a 
brunette girl of sixteen years of age, and her mother 
was dead, it was said, many years ago. 

^^Jle was a gentleman," said Jackson, pursuing a des- 
cription he had been giving of some one living on the 
coast. "He never took an insult, and never gave one; 
what more could be said of any man ?" 

"And he gave dis child a dollar Christmas day — 
course he's a gentleman," struck in Hoppin Lem, the 
planter's favorite servant, who, squatted on his haunches 
a few yards behind his master, drank m all the conversa- 
tion, and joined in the laugh, with the low " yah-e— ah- 
ah-ee !" so peculiar to the negro. 

" Hold your tongue, you black rascal!" said his master. 

" Was it not he who shot young Travers in a duel at 
the Mobile races ?" asked the Doctor. 

" Of course it was, and did it as bravely as any man 



THE PLANTATION HOUSE OF " FAR AWAY." 65 

ever did. Yet that duel ruined him; he has been a 
broken-down man ever since." 

" How is that ?" 

" "Why you see they had a dispute about the winning 
horse. He said that Centiped came in first, and Travers 
replied that if had not staked so much money on Centiped 
he would have seen straighter. This was a reflection on 
his honor that no one was expected to stand. He chal- 
lenged Travers, and Travers fell at the first fire. It 
wouldn't have been so bad, but Travers' old mother got 
wind of the duel from some of those Puritan meddlers, 
and came riding down to the field with her grey liair all 
streaming, and when she saw her son dead she cursed 
him. I wasn't there, but those that were there said it 
Avas a hard thing to see. He never got over it. It was 
a windy afternoon, about sunset, when the duel occurredj 
and to the present time, when there comes up a hard 
wind about that time of day, the poor fellow rides off as 
if the devil was after him, and will not speak to man or 
beast." 

" What a diseased mind a man must have to fight a 
duel !" said the Doctor. 

" How can he helj) it — is he going to have his honoi 
impugned, his character insulted ? He would fall so low 
that no one would speak to hun." 

" But he does not mend his character by killing a 
friend, and haunting his conscience." 

" That is an accident inseparable from society. There 
are certain wrongs which the pistol alone will redress, 



6Q WILD SPOETS m THE SOUTH. 

and the duel puts the feeble gentleman on an equality 
with the greatest bully." 

" No," said the Doctor, his impassible nature grad- 
ually warming, "it lowers the gentleman to a bully. 
If he gets shot, his honor dies with him ; if he kills, he 
is a broken man — either way the wrong is doubled ; and 
it is, after all, the bully that supports the institu- 
tion." 

" iN'o, sir ; it is the gentleman that supports the sys- 
tem, and is supported by it. "What else gives the navy 
and army its character, and holds it together — what pro- 
tects the weak, and cowers the laboring poor whose 
strength would make him over-reaching — what gives a 
tone to the gallantry of the South but a power that pun- 
ishes insult ?" 

"And murders its own children !" added the Doctor. 

'• Murder ! do you call it murder ? My own father 
was shot in a duel, but he died like a man. Where's the 
poltroon that don't resent an injury ? — as he lives, I'd 
spit on him ; every woman would despise him. There is 
not a girl in Florida that would dance with Alexander 
Pell after he got slapped in the face without killing the 
man that struck him. Is man a dog that he should 
suifer this ?" 

Jackson's manner was wild, and he gesticulated with 
his long arms like a phantom. The Doctor's blue eye 
was kindling in the fire-light. We looked for a war of 
words that might even amount to a specimen of the bat- 
tle they were discussing, when the Doctor, with one of 



67 

his usual strong transitions, cut off the discussion with a 
favorite couplet : 

*'A wink to a blind horse is as good as a nod ; 
Your faithful servant, Ollapod." 

Jackson turned his flashing eyes on the Doctor, his 
lids slightly contracted like a man in doubt as to another's 
meaning; it was evident he was reading the Doctor, 
and the bland face turned toward him was like an open 
page with blue marginal illumination. 

"Where do you reside. Doctor Pollock?" he asked, 
after a moment's pause, and in the indifferent tone 
assumed by the Doctor. 

" I was born in Virginia, and inherited a plantation of 
a hundred negroes," replied the Doctor, answering the 
planter's thoughts, and not his question. 

A long pause followed. We watched the light wood 
crackle, and the big particles of fire climbing up into the 
canopy of woods on the current of hot air, reflecting 
brief circles of light on the foliage above, and then going- 
out in blackness. The Doctor resumed his pipe. Mike 
pondered, cross-legged, puffing at his cigarettes, and the 
boys talked among themselves in under tones. 

" This won't do, gentlemen ! Mike, hand me that 
bottle," called out Jackson, rousing himself. One drink 
all around, and now for to-morrow's hunt. What shall 
it be, deer or turkey ?" 

" Or sheep ?" 

"That's a shame, Mike !" laughed Jackson. 



bo WELD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

" Don't let him quiz you that on mishap, gentlemen, 
older hunters than you have fared as badly. Did you 
ever hear of my blunder in fire hunting ?" 

Of course we had not. 

"Then I'll tell it to you." 

JACKSOISr'S STOKY OF A FIEE HUNT.* 

" It came about this way. I was up country looking 
around for a good two-year-old to run at Charleston 
races, when I met my old comrade, Stockton. We had 
been chums together at Princeton, as thick as two cats 
in a bag, sometimes studying, sometimes courting, and 
then we were good friends. When we had nothing else to 
do we quarrelled ; it is a sure sign of a good friend when 
he loves you enough to quarrel with you. Strangers don't 
care a picayune, and won't quarrel about you any way. 
Stockton had settled down to a sober life, owned a pew 
in the church, and as many little carroty-haired tokens 
as you could stand up endAvise in a ten acre lot. I was — 
well about the same sort of fellow as when a boy, only 
the devil had covered me up with his wicked ways. 

" The first thing after seeing Stockton, that was j^ro- 
posed, was a fire hunt, and a fire hmit it was. Dark 
still night — you could hear a peeper squeak a mile ofi", and 
run your nose against a cotton bale without seemg it. 
' Just the night,' said^tockton ; ' Just the night,' says I. 

* For this tale, I am indebted to the graceful pen of my friend, 
Gxoillermo. 



THE PLANTATION HOUSE OF " FAK AWAY." 69 

' Com^ake,' says he to his son, a boy about sixteen, long 
and lank like his father, and always ready to poke away 
from home. Accordmgly, all things ready, we trailed off 
into the woods and took a course along the sea-side, 
thinking to find more deer. 

" I led the way with the frying pan on my shoulder, 
keeping the fire in it well up with pitch pine knots, 
Stockton right behind with his rifle, and Jake keeping 
within sight in the rear. We had gone about a mile or 
so and the pan began to grow heavy, when I suddenly 
felt Stockton's hand on my shoulder, comj^elling me to 
stoj), and then the crack of his rifle from under my arm 
told me that he had fired at a deer that I had not seen. 
*That deer shone up bright any how,' he said, in a low 
self-satisfied tone, as he proceeded to load his gun, ' only 
to get blown out.' 

" ' Hadn't you better secure your game before load- 
ing?' 

" ' Ha ! ha !' said he, ' that fellow will not leave there 
until there is another set of legs under him. But come, 
I'm ready.' 

" So saying, we started in the direction of our prize ; 
when to our no little joy and surprise, we beheld another 
blue light apparently just beyond the spot where lay our 
fallen deer. Stockton agam fired, and out went the lio-ht 

" ' I first shot the doe,' he remarlj^d, while deliberately 
loading his rifle, ' and the buck woukl not leave her.' 

" Again we started, but had not taken a dozen steps, 
when lo! and behold, anotlier eye appeared. 



70 WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

" ' It's deuced strange,' said Stockton, quickly, as he 
raised his gun to his shoulder, ' that I have seen hut one 
eye each time.' 

"'Perhaps they have all accidentally been standing 
sidewise to you,' I replied. 

" ' Side or front,' he answered, ' I'll black that fellow's 
eye for him.' Crack went the rifle, and down went the 
eye. We had now arrived at the place where we 
supposed the first deer to have fallen, and made search 
for it, but nowhere was the game to be found. 

" Turning from the place, imagine our surprise at again 
beholding that single fiery ball glaring upon us with the 
same identical motion of the others. Stockton mecha- 
nically raised his rifle, but paused as he did so. As for 
me, nothing prevented my throwing down the fire-pan 
and giving ''leg bail ' but the disagreeable certainty of 
not being able to retrace my steps. I ran back in 
memory to childhood's hours, and recalled the old nur- 
sery tales I had heard of bears, lions, and hobgoblins, until 
I w^as satisfied beyond a doubt that Stockton had been 
shooting at the devil ! I was, however, aroused from my 
revery by his exclaiming, ' Ha ! I am a pretty fool. 
Something is the matter with my^ rifle, and I've been 
shooting all this time at the same deer ! Here, give me 
yours.' I did so, but could not help thinking that the 
deer was a greater faol by far if he had stood to so many 
shots. 

" The eye Avas now hid behind some bushes, but soon 
appeared again, when Stockton, after a long and delibe- 



THE PLANTATION HOUSE OF " FAR AWAY." 71 

rate aim, discharged his piece. The eye immediately 
disappeared, and he turned toward me, triumphantly 
nodding his head and exclaiming ; 

" ' He'll not shoAV that infernal eye of his again, I guess, 
for I put that ball square into it.' 

"I made no reply, but the term *" infernal eye ' seemed 
to me to be very appropriate indeed. I had now placed 
the ' pan ' upon the ground, and was arranging the fire, 
when Stockton uttered a suppressed exclamation of sur- 
prise and disappointment, which caused me to look up. 
Down went the fire, gun, and everything else ; my mouth 
gradually opened until my dinner was percej^tible, and I 
felt satisfied, from the progress my hair was making, that 
I should soon be relieved of my hat, for there was that 
little ball of fire moving very slowly toward the ground, 
with the same singular motions of the others. 

" ' Stockton,' whispered I, as soon as my feelings would 
permit me, ' we are a set of jackasses, for as certain as 
fate, we have been chasing the devil to-night.' 

*' He turned toward me with a half comical, half inqui- 
sitive look, and finally remarked : 

" ' "Well, hang me if you're not complimentary, very. 
IsTo, that is not the devil, but I am very well satisfied the 
devil is in me. Here, take this rifle, and when he again 
shows his eye do you let him have it. I'll hold the 
fight.' 

" I could not refuse, and so I took the gun, and was 
slowly and reluctantly raising it to my shoulder, when a 
noise behind me attracted my attention, and looking 



72 WILD SP0ET8 IN" THE SOUTH. 

around, I perceived Jake conelucting in a most discredit- 
able manner, twisting and squirming and holding on to 
his stomach as if he had the colic, and all the while 
making a noise hke choking. 

" I wish you would be kind enough to stop that infer- 
nal clatter !" said Stockton sharply, and addmg immedi- 
ately, "There he is — now give it to him — right in the 
eye." 

I was again raising the rifle to my shoulder, but was a 
second time deterred from my purpose by a peal or yell 
of laughter, from Jake, sufficient to have frightened 
every deer withing ten miles of us. For Stockton and my- 
self, however, there was no such thing as laugh, but, on 
the contrary, we were both rather inclined to raise a roAV 
than be laughed at, and Stockton, grasping his son by 
the shoulder, in a passion exclaimed : 

" What the devil is all this tomfoolery about ? Say ? 
Tell me this mstant, sir, or I'll ' boot ' you clear home." 

"Ha! ha! OhLordy! ha! ha! Amelia Lighthouse ! 
O, Lordy! Did I ever? Five miles — ough — my poor 
sides I" 

My curiosity was now excited to the utmost, and I 
turned to Stockton for an explanation. I shall not 
attempt to describe the expression of his countenance. 
Mirth and am^er were never so well minojled before. 

" Jackson," said he, finally, " we are a j^air of jack- 
asses, and have been shooting at the revolving light on 
the Amelia Lighthouse^ Jive miles off!'''' 

Then suddenly dropping tlie fire-pan, he ran to where 



THE PLANTATION HOUSE OP " FAR AWAY." 73 

his son was kicking and screaming about on the ground. 
He picked him up by the coat collar, shaking him into 
silence, and then said, " now look here, if you say one 
word about this at home, as sure as I'm your father, you 
shall never fire a gun as long as you live." 

As the laughter and comments on Jackson's story 
subsided, one of the negro boys said ; 

" Wish maussa hunt dat are varmint what's takin' off 
de lambs so ; 'specs as him hab no lamb 'tall soon." 

" Lost any to-day ?" 

" 'Spec a los' two, and two afore yesterday, and gwine 
to lose two to-night, kase all sheep come m airly, bein' 
wild : sure sign dat." 

" What is it, do you think ?" 

" Painter, for true ! I'se seen his tracks !" 

"Why don't you let your boys sleep by the sheep- 
pen ?" I asked of Jackson. 

" I am afraid I would have to pen them in," he 
replied ; " and then, if it was a panther, he might take 
the negro, and he is worth more than the sheep." 

" Then why don't you shoot the beast ?" 

•' I have hmited her till I am tired, and it only ends in 
her killing my dogs, and keeping out of shot herself. 
She will get tired here by and by, and then will go 
further down the coast. She has raised a yoimg one 
here this season, for in the summer one of the boys, 
while coming up the river in a canoe, saw her swimmiug 
across with her kitten in her mouth. He could have 

3 



74 WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

come up with her then, but she growled so fiercely that 
he was afraid, and made a fool of himself." 

" 'Specs anybody make a fool of hisself, when painter 
want to climb in his boat !" replied a self-conscious voice 
in the background. 

" "We had Mike here last year to hunt the same pan- 
ther, I think, but I believe he got whipped ; at all events, 
he went out one day, and didn't come back since." 

" Mike smiled his peculiar smile, which meant, Hke the 
German *Yah wohl,' anything according to the speaker's 
intent, but said not a word. 

*' Tell us of that hunt, old father of Dinah," said the 
Doctor. 

" "Where is my panther skin you promised ?" said 
Jackson. 

"Painter is an oncommon onsartin varmint," was 
Mike's musing rely, as he put his brawny arms around 
his knees, and rocked himself backward and forward like 
a China Mandarin. 

" I should think that he was oyikimin sartin^ for he 
comes here regularly once a year." 

" Wall, you see. Colonel, this war the way I was done 
for that time, and when yer heern it, you'll say that it 
was skeery, and no mistake." 

" A story — a story !" exclaimed Miss Jackson. I leaned 
forward to see the speaker, and he began his tale. 



75 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE panther's CUB. 

"He who flglits and runs away 
May live to fight another day." 

" Well, it was airly morning when I started out after 
that air painter. Small sign I had to steer by, only the 
hearin' tell that there w^as a painter 'bout. But it had 
been showering o'ernight, and so trailin' was easy 
enough, and yer could see every stalk of grass that had 
been shook, let alone the tracks a varmint the size of a 
painter would leave. I tuck down to Spring Creek, and 
followed it e'enmost to the barrens that stretch toward 
the salt water ; then I fetched a turn north, and struck 
inter the big swamp that comes out of the Suwanee. 
Here I saw an all-fired big bar's track, and slathers of 
deer, and a show of gobblers, but no painter whatsum- 
ever. Got a gobbler and tuck breakfast, and then kept 
on. Struck the branches of the St. John that arternoon. 
Good painter ground here, tearin' big swamp, and all- 
fired high cottonwoods and sycamores. No signs, and 
my dog was gin out, so we shantied under a grape-vine 
waitin' for daylight. Heered a painter holler in the 
night, but kuowed it was a young one by the voice, and 
it was off the wrong way. Mornin' come, and I got 



76 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

around througli little Ammaninac Swamp, and by night 
time had come piirty near whar I fust started from, hav- 
ing made a j^urty tolerable circle, and nairy a painter. 
Sez I, ' Those cusses at the sheej)-farm have been foolin' 
me, and tuck wild-cat for painter.' 

" So arter soundin' around to see where the buildin's 
lay, and whar the sheep-pen was, Yowler and I lay down 
together, and were doin' some tall sleepin', when I heerd 
a soft kind o' crying dowai the woods. I knowed it in a 
minnit ; it war the same painter — he hadn't been outside 
of my circle at all, the dratted cuss! He had just been 
a layin'-to for another haul on the sheep-pen, and so 
I hadn't struck his trail. I kept quiet, thinkin' he 
would come up toward the improvements, and I could 
tickle him, but he reether seemed to move off. Arter a 
while I heerd him purrin' like, and then I knew he had 
something to eat — fawn, like 'nough, or some small ani- 
mal. This guv me a mean oj^inion of this j^ainter, for 
your rael snortin' big fellars don't stoop to small fry, but 
live on deer, sheep, hogs, or sich like. Wall, mornin' 
come on, and when it bruck enough to see a meetin'- 
house, I pushed on, but the painter had moved off. I 
found a sheepskin all rolled up, and I knew then why he 
had been purring. The painter had caught a sheep on 
•the range some time in the day, and not eaten it, so he 
didn't have need for more fodder all night. I found 
the trail, and then sez I, 'Now, Mr. Painter, we'll see 
who's best at walkin'.' YoAvlcr tuck the trail, and along 
we bowled for about an hour, when all of a sudden I 



rr 

heerd Yowler, who was some ways ahead, stop his 
yelpin', and back he come, with somethin' arter him, 
tight as he could buckle. As they come up I let drive 
at what was arter him kind o' promiscuously, for it 
wasn't fairly dawn yet. The shot hit, I knew, for the 
varmint held up, and then run oiF. 

" ' JSTow,' says I ter myself, * isn't a painter a mighty on- 
sartin varmint ? Here is one that gets wounded, and yet 
don't pitch inter a fellar. Who'd ha' looked for sich a 
coward in a painter?' Then, after loadin', I put on 
Yowler again, and we bowled along, not quite so lively 
as afore, for Yowler was a leetle kind o' shy, but still we 
did some pretty loud goin'. 

" 'Whar's that air pamter?' sez I to myself; ' did any 
painter ever run so far before ?' It come on to be light, 
and I could sec the trail, and it was an all-fired big trail. 
Presently it got into a cane-brake, and then tuck a turn. 
Yowler guv tongue. I could hear the canes rattle as he 
jumped, but the painter broke out of this on the fur 
side, and made a bee-line agin right straight for the 
Ouithlacouchee River. 

" When we got to the river it was noon. I looked 
down the bank, and saw the tracks along in the mud 
where the varmint had been lookin' for a good place to 
cross. Presently I could see where he had laid down in 
the mud, and then for the fust time I saw it was a she 
l^ainter with sucking young ones. As near as I could 
make out by the marks in the mud she had two cubs 
lugging at her, the rest of her tits being of no account. 



78 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. "^' 

Then the track went in a little further under some alders, 
and there she had laid down agin, this time on her side, 
and, Jehosaphat ! thar by her side, as clare as daylight, 
was a dozen little tracks of a cub she had been a-carryin' 
in her mouth all that way. She had tuck to these bushes 
to give it some milk, and was goin' with it into the big 
swamps t'other side of the river. It was all as clare as 
if a schoolmaster had written it. That war the reason 
why the she painter didn't come on to fight when I fired 
at her ; she wanted to git her pups clare from the dog ; 
that's the natur of a painter, and an oncommin consider- 
in' natur it is, too. My 'pinion of that painter rose some. 
Arter the trail left the alder bushes, it went right into 
the river. 

" I soon found a log big enough for me and Yowler, 
and, puttin' the dog on one eend on't, so as to save him 
from the alligators, I slung my rifle on my back, and 
paddled across. I soon found the trail, and went jogging 
along pretty slow, for it was a tough kind of swamp, 
when in a minute or so I heerd Yowler burst out in a 
clear yell. I knowed he seed the painter, and I hurried 
on as well as I could, but, Jimminy Peters ! that painter, 
when he made a jump across the fallen logs, went as fur 
in one minute as I in ten. I soon come to where I heerd 
the dog break out so, and I seed somethin' kind o' 
curious. The old tracks went straight on south, but 
there were a set of new tracks that came right back on 
top the old ones, and just where the dog had come up 
they had turned off to the east. 



79 



"Wall, that's queer!' sez I to myself. 'If that's the 
same varmint, she's what I'm arter, and if she aint she's 
just as good, for I calkelate that one painter is just as 
good as another, j)rovidin' allers she's as big.' So I 
cheered on Yowler, and we went on the side track. 
Now over logs, then in a mucky place, and now through 
the water, that dog and I stuck to that painter like two 
wood-ticks. Arter going a little to the east the track 
went back to the river, and went across about a mile 
above where it had crossed before. ' Wall, that's queer,' 
sez I to myself. ' There's somethin' onnateral in that 
painter. She won't tree, and she goes in a straight line 
to t'other eend of creation, and now she's going back 
agin. Wall, here goes,' sez I, and I took another log and 
ferried back agin to the north shore. There was the 
trail as clare as mud, and big as an alligator's. Up the 
bank and away inter the woods we went. There's no 
sucking of cubs now. Yowler is a hurryin' her along a 
leetle too fast for any sich family doin's. So on we went 
right north. ' Jerusalem !' sez I to myself, ' keep on this 
way, old steamboat, much longer, and you'll be back 
where you started from, and I'll drive you into Colonel 
Jackson's pen, and shut the door on you !' 
"'Bout by the Black Mud Creek there's a flat of land 
that had been overflowed and had dried off, and as we 
come here I seed the painter had jumped through, and 
every time she had jumped she had come up to her belly 
in the mud, and once or twice had come so low that her 
neck and chin had sunk in the mud. Thinks I, that must. 



80 WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 

put tlie cub under in the mud, yet I don't see the marks 
of the little rat. 

" Jist then we got through the creek, and I seed whare 
the old painter had lam down on the bank with her side 
to the river. 

" Thar were her tracks as clare as Gospel, but whar was 
the cub ? The cub was gone ! Whar had it gwine to ? It 
was clare it hadn't gwine anywhare that Yowler and I 
had been ; it had been left on the fur side of the Ouith- 
lacouchee. It tuck just a minute of thinkin', and it was 
all clare. The bee line she had made, the two full tits, 
the bee-line back agin; Avhat a cursed fool I was not to 
have seen through it afore I had come so fur ! 

" The painter had littered two cubs somewhar near 
whar I had seen her in the mornin' ; she had been chased, 
and knew the parts was onsafe ; she had made up her 
mind to carry her cubs into the Ouithlacouchee swamp, 
and had started with one when Yowler struck her trail. 
That was the reason she sent Yowler back ; that was the 
reason she wouldn't tree ; and jist keepin' in sound of 
the dog's yelp, had gone right to the swamp, hid her 
cub, come back on her back track to ketch the dog and 
lead him away, till she could go back fur t'other cub, 
bein' sartin that the hound and his fool of a master were 
away from her cub, and were chasin' her about. 

" Soon as I had reasoned this out I called Yowler in, 
and turnin' about, struck for that ere swamp straight. 
Yowler come on behmd, and about two hours afore sun- 
set I struck the river, ferried across, took up the old 



81 



trail in the swamp, and was busy pickin' it out over logs 
and under vines whar the moss grew so thick it didn't 
leave room for a track. The scent was cold, and Yow- 
ler could jist ketch it, but what with puttin' our two noses 
together we fetched up in a big windfall, and jist in the 
snarl of trees, whar the splinters and branches, and 
growin' vines was the wickedest, there was a little bed 
of strips of bark and leaves, and the young painter cub 
was curled up, dreamin' of supper-time. He was about 
as big as two tomcats tied together by the tails, and his 
natur', when I come to prick him up, was not quite so 
sweet. He meowed, and sneezed, and about chawed up 
my coat-sleeve afore I could bag him, which I did by 
takin' off my huntin' coat, jammin' his head into one of 
the sleeves, and buttonin' and tyin' him in bag like. 

" When I got all this done, I thought of the old pain- 
ter, and what she would say to me when she come home 
with her t'other young 'un. The more I calkelated, the 
more it seemed onpleasant, for though the varmint was 
so perlite when she was outwittin' me, I reckoned that 
she wouldn't be so much so when the boot got on t'other 
leg. Fust I thought I would get out of that air windfall, 
and wait for the old lady on the bank of the river, whar we 
could have a clare field, fur I knew it was sartin she would 
be arter me, and I'd a leetle reether the fight wouldn't 
be fit out in that swamp. So I put out for the river, 
and when I got tliar took a clare spot, and puttin' the cub 
down for the stakes, sat down to wait fur the other party. 

" The wind was still, and I could hear around a con • 



82 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

siderable distance. A few big frogs, and once in a 
while an alligator, let on for music in the river. Now 
and then an owl hooted in the bottom land, and 
the cranes goin' out to sea were honkin' away over- 
head, but I couldn't hear any painter, and accordin' to 
my calculations there would be some howlin' when she 
cum home and found her papj^oose bagged. Yowler 
began to get restless, and watched the swamp as if he 
knowed what was comin'. The woods begun to get 
blacker, the sun had gone doAvn, and some black clouds 
bellowed overhead. It looked like a squall. 

" ' Why don't she cum ?' sez I to myself; 'or maybe 
she's sich a knowin' varmint she's waitin' for night, to 
chaw me up completely.' Once I thought I seen her eyes 
in the edge of the bushes, but it turned out to be some 
rotten fire-wood. 'Jerusalem!' sez I, 'why don't she cum !' 
It got to be so dark I couldn't see the sights on my rifle, 
and I thought it all over to myself. I o\\ai up I felt kind 
a mean like. This stealin' young cubs out of their nests 
is onnateral, any way. It is good enough for an Injun, 
but's not Christian-like. I could see that old painter 
comin' home, with her second cub in her mouth. I could 
tell jist how she felt. I could see her big nostril open 
when she smelt my tracks about her nest, and when she 
saw her cub was gone, Lord ! what a cry she would give. 
I'd given a bearskin to put that cub back, and then have 
fit it out with a clare conscience. But 'twas no use a 
talkin' ; it couldn't be done, no how. All that's left when 
the deal is made is to stand up to yer hand. ' But,' 



THE panther's CUB. 83 

thinks I to myself, ' ef it's right to shoot the old painter, 
it is right to ketch her kitten.' That's the natnr of man ; 
ef they do anything wrong they reason to themselves to 
make it right. 

" ' Jerusalem !' sez I, as it got blacker and the fire-flies 
cum about, 'why don't she cum?' Jist then, in lookin' 
around me, I sees a light shine on the other shore a little 
way below. I knew right off it was an Injin camp, and 
reckoned it was part of Tiger Tail's band, that had cum 
up from below. Nasty varmints that band was — worse 
en painters any day. Howsumever, Injins or no Jnjins, 
they will help fight the painter ; so I rolled a drift-log 
into the water, and once more paddled over the river. 
I looked behind once or twice to see if the painter wasn't 
a comin' over, too, and climbin' on the log behind me, 
but it was only the mullet jumpin' in the river, and so 
I got over with the cub all right, and put right down 
the bank for the camp. Yer better believe I didn't let 
grass grow under me. As I cum up to the fire-light, I 
saw who the Injins were; they Avere friendly enough 
that summer, but mighty mean cusses, and had served 
me many a dirty trick. Their camp was just in the edge 
of the timber, and the squaws were cooking supper in a 
pot, while about a dozen men sat around in a ring, 
lookin' on and suckin' their thumbs, wrapped up in their 
blankets, just as if it was cold. As I cum up, I looked 
back on my track, and whar the sandy bank lay agin 
the water, whar it war brightened up by the sunset, I 
see the she-painter cumin' like greased ligbtnin'. 



84: WILD SPOKTS m THE SOUTH. 

" I walked composed-like and slow into the Injin camp, 
and right through the ring, piittin' the painter cub all 
rolled up in the coat down in the middle, and then goin' 
to the fur side, set down as far off as convenient. 

" ' Injin Mike is welcome,' said a young man, wlio I 
made out by his paint to be Tiger Tail's son, waivin' his 
hand like to me, and keepiu' his eye inquirin' like on my 
coat, that was a wrigglin' alpout on the ground. 

" ' Injin Mike is a hunter, and he brings a hunter's 
gift,' sez I, slow-like, and speakin' Injin ; ' he was afeerd 
his lajin brother would be in want of some game.' 

" I knew this would rile 'em some, for Tiger Tail was 
allers a big hunter, and he didn't like me, for I could take 
the feather out of his hair any day. I war goin' on to 
say more, but I didn't have time, fur jist then I heard a 
thump in the bushes, and the she-painter cum in as ef she 
was flyin' ; ears back, eyes like candles — she was some. 
She tuck the young chief before she landed with a sort 
o flyin' box Avith her paw, and he never riz hair arter- 
wards, for she tuck scalp and all. 

" The lousy devils rolled over like prairie dogs — the 
pot upsot, the coals flew around, the squaws yelled, the 
dogs pitched in, and afore any one could get out his 
knife, that painter did some tall tearin'. They rolled 
over and over, yellin', bitin' swearin ; some got hit fur 
the painter, fur they couldn't see whar to strike, and 
thar was no room for shootin'. Lord, Colonel, it would 
hur done you good to have seen that air scrimmage. -I 
got behind a tree and larfed so it hurt me, and when I 




...oo uicii X Heard a ihuiui) in tliL- bushes, aiul tlic .-liL-puinter euiu in as ct siit 
was flyin'.-PAGE 84 



85 



see they had well-nigh fit out, Yowler and me, thinkin' 
they might blame \is, stepped out, and I hain't seen them 
Injins, nur that air painter since, though I've heer'en tell 
that Tiger Tail ware lookin' for me about the Mecaco 
this summer." 

"And if he catches you, you will not be able to raise 
hair either," said Jackson. 

" J^i^he does," answered Mike, laughing. 

" But what became of the other sucking cub after the 
Indians had killed its mother and brother ?" 

" I went back arter it that very same night, and found 
it jist whar the she-painter had left it when she tuck my 
trail. It was a meowin' away in the woods all alone, and 
I felt kind a sorry for it, and carried it into the Fort at 
Tampa Bay and guv it to the Colonel thar, whar it 
growed up, and got so big and saucy that it licked the 
hull fort one day and then cleared." 



86 WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE DEER HUNT. 

"A hundred hounds bayed deep and strong 
Clattered an hundred steeds along." 



Scott. 



The light broke early on the planter's house, and the 
smoldering brands of our camp-fire the morning after 
Mike's panther story. It may not have been early, 
though our late hours of the evening before made it seem 
so to me, and I silently banned the sleepless hound that 
bayed at the early day. Then " the cock's shrill clarion, 
and the echoing horn," ushered in the fuller light, and 
drew us to our feet, yawning and drinking in the misty 
sights and sounds. 

The sheep were crowding out of the pens, and spread- 
ing over the open woods. Their constant bleating 
drowned the cries of their negro drivers. The horses 
were whinnying for their food. Our boys were light- 
ing a fire, and preparing meat, singing and laughing 
away. There were calls to negroes with fancy names, 
and shouting answers ; guns were discharged, and saddles 
examined ; a dozen things were wanted that could not 
be found, or when found were not in a condition to be 



THE DEER HUNT. 87 

used. The little nigs were running to the spring for 
water, or to the shed for corn, or all around the grounds, 
merely for the fun of running and shouting. They were 
dressed alike, in long, brown cotton shirts, and one 
sex could not be distinguished from the other. Aunty 
Blaze, after seemg the table was spread, and the meat 
cooked, brought out an immense corn-cake, on a wooden 
turner, and with a commendable feeling of pride threw 
it down on the table, right side up, steaming hot, and 
brown as rosewood. Turning to go, she stumbles against 
a little nig girl coming with the sugar-bowl ; a smart slap 
applied with the cake-turner propels the little nig forward 
a yard, and elicits a yell of disapprobation from the 
clumsy child, who drops the sugar-bowl to the floor, and 
then runs off. 

The Doctor loads his double-barrelled gun, and 
explains its new-fashioned lock to Miss Jackson, who 
comes out arrayed in a tight-fitting cap and bodice, and 
her eyes lit up with the anticipation of the chase. Mike 
slowly and methodically wipes out his rifle with dry flax, 
and every moment is seen eating some hidden remains of 
last night's meal, which he has stowed away on his per- 
son, and which are to form more than half his breakfast. 
We eat our hurried meal — it might be called a passover, 
as no one takes time to sit — and then ride off down the 
woods. 

Jackson and Mike are leading tlie van, Lou and the 
Doctor still side by side, and there goes a negro on a 
marsh tackey, and there a neighbor that has come over 



88 WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

fer the hunt, mounted on a vicious mare as thin as a 
crane. The hounds, of a dozen different colors and 
sizes, go along in couples, led by the negroes on foot, 
and on ahead to a given rendezvous shuffles Pompey 
Duffield Sah, the oldest negro on the place, driving a 
mule laden Avith two baskets of provisions intended for 
^ the dinner of the party, and the mist comes up from the 
river in golden clouds, for the sun is just rising. Down 
along the bank we went with call and laughter, and the 
bittern arose from the sedge with a guttural cry, and the 
alligator sank into the water with a heavy splash, as our 
cavalcade moved onward to the lower pine lands that 
skirted th^. big swamp. The trees were all white pine ; 
there was no underbrush, and we could see down the 
long arcades they formed for nearly a mile. ISTow and 
then a flaunting flower would rear its crimson cheek to 
the wind, or a vine could be seen clasping a trunk, and 
drooping from branch to branch in long festoons, but 
generally the ground Avas covered only with the yellow 
siftings of the pine, and free from all vegetation. The 
horses trod without a sound, and, save now and then a 
squirrel, we met no animal life, until we came to the 
hummocks, and drew together to give general directions 
for commencing the chase, the manner of which is neces- 
sary to explain. 

A hummock is a thicket often covering but an acre or 
two of land, and sometimes presenting an extent of 
several miles. The one now in view covered about thirty 
acres, and half a mile further down the woods, we could 



THE DEER HUNT 89 

see another. It lay in a low swale of land, and in it the 
haw, the alder, and willow, grew into a tangled copse, 
studded with the red leaves of the pinckneya, while above 
them all, a hundred feet or more, the ash, the magnolia, 
and gum-trees, reared their long arms, and opened their 
blossoms to the upper air. It was an admirable spot for 
game, with succulent grass and flags, and a dusky shade 
that was never penetrated by the sun. 

" You stay here. Doctor Pollock," said Jackson, as we 
rode up ; " and mind your eyes." 

The Doctor drew himself up with a doubtful air, as if 
uncertain whether minding his eyes referred to the uses 
he had just been putting those organs to in watching 
Miss Jackson's face, or whether it referred to watchful- 
ness in the future ; so he answered at random, " All 
right, sir!" 

" And you," he continued, turning to me, " take your 
place two gun-shots oft" on that side, keeping always 
within five or six rods of the swamp. And you," turnmg 
to the neighbor that had joined us, " go on next ; and 
you, Lou, come with Mike and me." 

And away they cantered, with the dogs, around the 
other side of the swamp, dropping one or two negroes, 
as they passed, to guard some particular point of the 
hummock, and in this way we inclosed two sides of the 
swamp with a cordon of hunters stationed just so far 
apart that if a deer came out, one or the other of the 
hunters in waiting was certain of a shot. On tlie further 
side, and the only portion of the swamp that we were 



90 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

unable to surround, the driver was to enter with the 
hounds, and the deer would not be likely to make his 
escape in that direction. 

The last I saw of Jackson he was winding around the 
swamp with Mike, having left his daughter on a little 
knoll that commanded a fair view of the hummock, and 
where her bright bay horse and little figure stood out in 
relief against the dark pines beyond. She caught sight 
of me and waved her hand. I could see, from her atti- 
tude, that she was intently watching the swamp, and her 
short double-barrelled gun hung from her arm w^ith all 
the ease that it would have been carried by a stronger 
hunter. The doctor I could not see, but my negro, 
Scipio, armed only with a knife, stood between us, and 
only a short distance from me. I looked for the other 
members of the hunt, but they had gone, and jDerfect 
stillness reigned over the pine woods and hummock. 
Moment after moment slipped away ; I listened for every 
sound, but could hear nothing, save the impatient champ- 
ing of my horse. Away down the woods a fox-squirrel 
flirted his broad tail as he chased his comrade up a tree, 
or a painted woodpecker passed by in undulating sweeps 
as silently as a moth. At length I heard a distant call; 
it was so faint it just reached me, but I recognized it as 
the driver cheering the hounds as he cast them off. ISTow 
for it. Another pause. The cry was repeated, and with 
it the low yelp of a dog, then another, and then a ringing 
shot away down the woods. My horse pricked his ears, 
and Scipio mounted a fallen tree the better to survey 



THE DEEE HUNT. 91 

the scene. No cheering shout announced the death of 
the deer, though the dogs stopped yelj)ing. 

At this moment I heard in the bushes the rapid bound 
of some animal ; it came nearer and nearer. From the 
higher ground where I stood I could see over the bushes 
a pair of antlers, and I supposed it to be the same deer 
that had been fired at down the swamp. I dismounted 
to take surer aim. How my heart beat in unison with 
the bounding of his feet, while every sense converged 
into the coming of his presence ! But, alas ! he did 
not come out by me, but between me and the Doctor, 
and very near to him. Bang ! bang ! I heard his gun 
explode, and immediately the deer turned in again, just 
keeping the edge of the bushes, and showing his back at 
every jump. As he passed me, I took deliberate aim, 
and when his flag showed over the grass, I fired. A bet- 
ter aim never was taken, but the deer only seemed to 
move with an accelerated speed down past the next 
stand,' and receiving a shot there, and two from 
Miss Jackson, then rushed back into the swamp from 
whence he came. The dogs, with the firing, broke out 
into a louder chorus ; the negro drivers were coming 
on, thrashing the bushes and shouting away. I heard 
Jackson's horn winding its clear notes nearer and nearer ; 
he was following up the dogs, keeping in the open woods, 
while Mike was doing the same on the other side. All 
at once the hounds broke out with a louder yell, and at 
the same moment the buck broke cover again in front of 
me, accompanied by two does, one on cither side. I had 



92 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

just loaded, and had my foot in the stirrup, when, with- 
out changing position, I fired at the stag's shoulder. I 
missed my mark, but shot one of the does, that tumbled 
down in the grass. The buck and the other doe once 
more turned back, and, wild with fright, coursed down the 
edge of the hummock toward Poke, who fired his barrel 
again, and this time, with some correctness, for the buck 
dropped his tail for an instant with an uneasy motion, 
when raising it again, he turned back, followed by Poke, 
on horseback, directly past my stand. I fired my second 
barrel without efiect, and then, not able to resist the 
contagion of the chase, spurred my horse after the flying 
anunals. Away they went down the little swale that led 
toward Lou Jackson's stand. One hound after another, 
as he came out of the rushes, caught sight of the deer, 
and joined in the chase with a double note. Bang ! came 
a shot from my left, missed clear, and the hunter, not 
stopping to load, joined the chase. Now for it. Miss 
Jackson ! I saw her raise her gun, her father was close 
behind, riding hard to get to her, and away down the 
woods I could see Mike trying to head off the chase, his 
long hair streaming behind him like a woman's. A i)uff 
of smoke, and a report — the buck staggered ; another 
shot and he seemed to renew his courage, drawing in 
behind him, in one yelling, shouting, crashing train, every 
man, horse, and dog, in the woods. 

" You hit him, Lou. Tally-ho ! Hi on ! hi ! Hurrah ! 
Faster ! There's Tip, and there's Slasher ! Go it. Music ! 
Golly ! maussa, gib him fits !" were the cries that were 



THE DEER HUNT. 93 

intelligible in the medley of sound, until tlie yelling of 
the dogs, and the trampling of the horses drowned all 
words. The horses, as wild in their ardor as their riders, 
needed no rein. The buck led the way directly for ano- 
ther hummock that was situated about three miles 
away, and which was now within sight; his flight 
was straight and well sustained, though now and then 
a spot of blood on the leaves showed that he was 
wounded. The dogs were toiling on behind, not two 
yards away, and close behind the dogs came all the hun- 
ters, the Doctor, riding the fastest horse, taking the lead. 
As we approached the hummock, the pine trees grew 
closer together, and while going between two of them 
the Doctor was caught by his gun, which he held cross- 
wise before him on the saddle, and was swept off his 
horse to the ground. " There's a ten strike !" called out 
Jackson, as we rushed by. Closer still we came to the 
deer, every dog stretched to his utmost length, every 
rider bending to his horse's mane ; Mike was just raising 
his rifle to his shoulder to shoot, when without a sign the 
big buck fell head first to the ground, and rolled over 
and over with the impetus of the chase. His heart had 
broken in the desperate burst just within reach of his 
lair, in whose close covert the doe, with one long bound, 
was lost. Up came the dogs and horses so fast they ran 
over the game, and crowded and jostled together as they 
pulled up. So rolls and bubbles a wave that meets a rock 
on the sandy beach. Then there was dismounting, and 
whipping off the dogs, and a search for the Avounds in 



94: WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

our quarry. Two buck-shot, in the thick part of the neck 
from behind, came from the Doctor's second barrel. 

" Where is the Doctor ? here is his horse. Oh ! there 
he comes Hmping along rather sore with his fall." A 
laugh and a sly joke were all the consolation we had to 
offer him. Two more buck-shot in the right side, close 
together ; that is Lou Jackson's shot. They were the 
only ones of the j^arty using shot guns. !N'one of the 
shots were heavy enough to kill the deer, though altoge- 
ther they had broken hun down in the chase. We 
wound a horn to tell the drivers we left behind our 
whereabouts, and putting the buck on one of the negroes' 
horses, and coupling the dogs to keep them from enter- 
ing the swamp, we turned back the way we came. 

"Now for the does we left behind," said Jackson. 
"How many were there !" 

" I saw two bucks and four does," said the Doctor. 

•' Fudge ! those were the same deer we have been chas- 
ing, only your people turned them back into the hum- 
mock two or three times without killing them." 

" I killed one," said I. • 

" Where is it ?" 

" It fell in the bushes." 

" Reckon you did not hit her." 

" You had better believe it ; I can show you the place 
where she fell." 

" That isn't what we want. Where is the j^lace that 
she is now, can you tell that ? I fired at a doe, too, but 
a long way off, and she probably is where yours is." 



THE DEER HUNT. 95 

"Doctor, how's your back ?" 

" He he ! golly mighty I he quit saddle smart dat 
time !" remarked Cassar. 

As we rode up to the hummock where we had started 
the game, I found the place where I had shot the doe, 
but she was not there, though the negroes said she had 
fallen. 

" Throw off a dog, then," said Jackson. 

" Let Music try,?' said his daughter ; and accordingly 
Music was loosened and sent in the grass. Music was a 
young hound, spotted white and black, like a coach-dog, 
and with such silky ears they felt like a satin robe in 
your hand. She was led to the place where the deer had 
fallen, and taking its track with a plaintive whimper, 
commenced unwinding it from among the bushes and 
reeds. Presently a louder effort warned us to beware, 
and cantering apart a little, so as to be able to see all 
around the hummock, Mike's grey eye caught a sight 
of the doe trying to steal out of the bushes. A clear 
ringmg shot was followed by a quick leap, and she fell 
dead. 

"We laid them side by side, the stately buck and his 
gentle consort. The dew of the morning was still glitter- 
ing on their hides — their eyes were as bright and as full 
as in life. I wondered if Miss Jackson felt any pity for 
them, as she saw the dogs licking the blood that flowed 
from their throats. 

One of the negroes dismounting from his pony, we 
substituted the two deer in place, and tying their feet be-' 



96 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

neatli the belly of the struggling horse, had them sent 
to the place where we were to meet for dhmer. 

" jSTow one more hunt before dmner. Where shall we 
go, boys ?" 

" Saw de ole white buck fur sartin, dis day, maussa !" 
said the planter's head negro, coming up. 

" Where did you see him ?" 

" Down by de rim, ober dere," said the negro, point- 
ing with his finger ; " his tracks fresh as dis niggah's." 

" You mean you saw his tracks ?" 

" Yes a maussa." 

" How does he know that it is a buck ?" I asked. 

" How fur to know he's a buck ? Haint chased dat 
air deers' often fur nuthin' ; 'spect I be'ent a fool !" 
replied Jumping Lem, w^itli some asperity. 

"Wall, if that ere is the buck that run in this range 
last winter, I kinder guess ye'll all have to rub your legs 
with bar's grease to ketch him," added Mike. 

" Don't you think we can shoot him, Mike ?" asked 
Lou Jackson. 

" iTo, young woman, I don't ; thar are too many here 
to make certain of any deer. When a man Avants a deer 
bad, he goes alone and keeps his mouth shut." 

As we rode over to inspect the tracks, I learned, partly 
from the exclamations of the negroes, and partly from 
Jackson's account, that this buck passed the winters in 
the pine woods, retiring when the mosquitoes become 
thick in the spring, to the cool swamps of the Ouithla- 
couchee. It has been so often hunted, and was so sue- 



THE DEEK HUNT. 97 

cessful in escaping, that it become well known at the 
Jackson plantation, and was the object of a covert super- 
stition to all the negroes, which mysterious fear rather 
aided his escape, for when the boys saw it coming they 
became so frightened, they could not hit forty paces, 
off. 

On reaching the run that Lem had mentioned, Ave rea- 
dily found the tracks, and all drew up to examine them. 
The presentation of some unknown bone to a company 
of savans, or the appearance of a new bonnet at a coun- 
try sewing society, occasions not more curiosity and sage 
comment than does the discovery of a new track in the 
woods. One mentions its size, another recognizes old 
peculiarities or marks, another says it was the foot of a 
male animal, another that it was fat in flesh, and another 
that it was going on an easy trot, and not disturbed, and 
what is stranger still, from the small data of four marks 
in the damp soil, all these facts arrived at are the results 
of careful observation, and seldom mcorrect. 

According to the congress now assembled, this buck 
was the old white buck, so called from an unusually 
white coat, and had gone at a gentle gait into the Black 
Jack hummock, which lay two miles further on, and 
before which we presently arrived. It was about- a half 
mile in length by three quarters broad, and was filled, 
Uke the other swamp holes, with long grass, bushes, and 
vines, from which rose several tall trees of those 
species that spring in swamps and savannahs, and at its 
upper end there grew a close thicket of black jack trees. 

6 



98 WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 

Once more the members of the chase separated to take 
commanding positions, overlooking the edges of the 
thicket. We were cautioned against shooting at any- 
thing tliat might come out, until we were certain the 
white buck was not there. Once more Mike and Jack- 
son disappeared, and with them the hounds, already 
snuffing the air from the swamjD, and tugging at their 
leashes to get away. Once more the forest was still, 
save the throbbings of our hearts, that counted the 
anxious seconds. 

In a short time I could hear the cheers of the negroes, 
and the thrashing of the bushes as they struggled for- 
v/ard in the tangled underbrush. At this instant a doe, 
followed by a fawn almost grown, came to the edge of 
the bushes. She looked up and down for an instant, her 
large ears turning this way and that, w^hen not seeing 
any one, she came out on a lope, and passing close by 
me, ran down the woods, making for the river. I had 
my gun to my shoulder, but remembering the white 
buck, withheld my fire, lest the bigger game should fol- 
low the course of the doe and find me with an empty 
gun. Yeow-ow-ow came from the hummock ; that was 
Music's voice — her tone was like a bugle's. Then two 
or three whimpering notes from other hounds. 

" Wha's dat air a bobbin' in ee bushes ?" asked Scipio, 
standing near me and eagerly trying to overlook the 
grassy valley. "A cat — a cat!" he shouted, "sure as 
gun," and a handsome specimen of the feline genius 
sprung out of the bushes, and then seeing Scipio, darted 



THE DEEK HUNT. 99 

back again to cover. " Golly mighty, wouln't dat cat 
get shook up — yah — ha, yah — ha — he!" 

Kow the hounds broke out in chorus, with a multitu- 
dinous cry that babbled in the bushes and wailed in the 
air, as though the echoes caught the sound and mellowed 
it down to a continuous accord. Scipio felt the conta- 
gion, and dancing up and "down, relieved himself as fol- 
lows : 

" Dar dey come ! dar dey come ! Bress de Lord ! 
don't dey skin 'em — dat beats dis child ; hy ah ha, hy 
ah ha ! — go it Music !" 

The dogs had come halfway down the cover, when a 
buck and doe broke out together. He did not appear 
to be of unusual size ; but I could not wait any longer, 
and fired. He fell and rose again, running over the 
brow of a little hill with his tail doAvn ; here he 
drew the fire of my neighbor on the right, and fell to 
rise no more. The doe halted a moment where her com- 
rade fell, as if waiting, for him to rise, when away 
down the woods a rifle rung its sharp crack and she fell 
like a clod almost on the body of her mate. I knew 
Mike's rifle by the efiect, even if I did not know its 
sound. 

The hounds came closer ; we could see the grass and 
bushes moving where they were winding about, and 
now and then their sickle-shaped tails above the weeds. 
The clamor increased, the dogs were almost through, 
and yet no white buck to correspond with the negro's 
description of the big buck they had so often hunted. 



100 WILD 8P0KTS IK THE SOUTH. 

At this instant I. saw rise up from the very edge of the 
bushes, a buck, that from his stately size I at once 
recognized to be the big buck. He had evidently been 
watching the preparations for the hunt, and selecting the 
very time our guns were discharged, he rushed out 
between me and one of the negroes, and without 
regarding either, flew down the open pine woods at a 
flying gallop. Hardly had he cleared the valley, when I 
heard Jackson shouting, and saw him riding hard toward 
my stand ; but the dogs coming out and taking the deer's 
track with loud clamor, prevented my hearing. I sprang 
into my saddle, and went flying alongside of the hounds, 
with the air soughing through my hair, and the deer in 
view a hundred yards ahead. In a moment or two Lou 
Jackson and the Doctor were in sight, their horses skim- 
ming the open woods like birds. Then came the sorrel 
mare, and next Scipio on the pony, and then in the dis- 
tance Jackson and Mike, with all the negroes that were 
mounted. Faster, still faster, heart and sense fixed on 
that flying buck, and the trees merged together in a 
mass as we swept among them. Whoop ! why cannot 
a man cheer louder ; why cannot a horse fly faster when 
a deer is in view. There is a crash and a flash of dirt and 
sticks ; the sorrel has gone down, and her rider rolled 
over and over, and far ahead of his steed. There is no 
time to see if he can get up again. Hurrah ! there is a 
hummock ! See Tiger and Bess turn to the left ! They 
know the buck will not run through it, and they turn 
aside to cut the radius of the arc he is about to make. 



THE DEEK HUNT. 101 

He sees tlie plan and accelerates his speed. His horns 
are lying on his back ; he is stretching away at his high- 
est speed, and whenever a bush intercepts his flight, he 
leaps it with a bound that must give him a bii'd's-eye 
view of his pursuers. 

Far ahead of the deer grew a close swamp, and from 
the straight line the deer was making we knew he was 
looking to it for refuge. Behind, I heard Jackson shout- 
ing at us, but who could stop to listen with such a buck 
in view ? On we went, the dogs still nearer the deer, 
and Tiger almost within reach of his haunches. Iion 
Jackson held one rein in each hand, her eyes fixed on 
the chase, and her hair flying loose behind her. There 
goes the deer in the bushes ; he touched a log here and 
a bog there, and along he went like a rope dancer. 
Tally ho! On went the dogs, when, to my surprise, 
Tiger disappeared from view, and in a second of time 
the whole pack were floundering in the morass. " Hold 
hard!" I heard again from behind. "Hold hard. Miss 
Jackson !" I screamed, as the truth flashed on me. 
" The quicksands !" Too late ; her horse was wild with 
the chase, and she could not hold him. He made one or 
two desperate leaps as he found himself floundering, and 
in a second of time was half ingulfed in the mud. 
His rider still held the rems and kept her seat on the 
struggling horse. The Doctor was in equal plight, while 
his frightened beast pawed the air in its attempts to 
regain a footing. My horse, more used to such ground, 
turned short around when he felt it quaking, throwing 



102 WILD SPOPwTS m THE SOUTH. 

me in the edge of the mud like a clown in a circus. 
Up came Mike as fast as he could ride, and Jackson 
behind him. 

Mike threw himself from his horse, and while the 
others were cutting sticks to throw to the ingulfed 
riders, ran out by quick jumps to the log over which 
the deer had run, and then cutting off with his knife a 
grapevme that had climbed a neighboring tree, he 
wound it around his arm and swung himself out toward 
Miss Jackson. The first swing did not send him far 
enough, but putting his foot against the trunk, as his 
rope oscillated, he swung out to where the young girl 
lay up to her arm-pits, and rapidly shiking in the sands. 
He said something in a low voice to her that we could 
not hear, and putting his hand under her arm began 
slowly to draw her from her perilous position. When 
she was entirely above the surface, he swung the vine 
sufficiently to carry his charge to the root of the tree, 
from whence it was comparatively easy to reach the 
shore. I would have given a year of life to get such a 
look of thanks from a lady I know as the breathless girl 
gave Mike — the ugly scamp ! The Doctor's turn came 
next, and then the horses, until finally, after two or three 
hours of hard work, we were all once more in the saddle, 
and some of us bearing more resemblance to scavengers 
than gallant hunters under the greenwood tree. 

" S'pose you tink dat white buck is de debbil for true 
now, hey ?" said Scijjio, as he was tightening my girths. 

" No, I don't ; why do you ask ?" 




Cutting off with his knife a grape-vine that had climbed a neighboring tree, he 
wound it round his arm, and swung himself out toward Miss Jackson. -Pagk 102. 



THE DEEPw HUNT. 103 

"Kase I'se not sartiii the iiiggalis here'bouts knows 
heaps, and dey sez dey ain't a gwhie to Imnt dat buck no 
how, and I guess as how I wouldn't nuddcr. 'Spec as how 
surathin' wuss en what we've seen will come out a' that 
eer chase yit. I'se not scared, but dat is very 'plexing.'* 

The day was wearing away fast, and, sending one of 
the boys for the two deer last killed, we all turned 
toward the place appointed for our meeting, where after 
a few minutes' ridinsr a blue smoke column arose amons: 
the trees, and the distant gleam of water announced a 
dinner and a rest — two pleasant things, whose worth is 
only known to those who have labored vrell. From our 
dining-place, a bend of the river showed ns two vistas 
down the ancient woods, and the broad sheet of water, 
half in shadow half in sunshine, was broken by the flocks 
of ducks that were coasting along its banks. The trees 
that fringed the shore were covered with immense creep- 
ing vines, that clasped the trunks and suspended them- 
selves from the branches. Down by the water's edge, 
the golden-rod reared its yellow head, and the love-vine 
wove its orange thread like a net over many a rank 
grove of water plants. The opposite shore was lower 
tlian the bank on which we were standing, and the eye 
took in miles of cane-brake and forest, nnbroken by any 
sign of human labor. 

" Look at those turkey buzzards, Doctor," said Miss 
Jackson, pointing to two b'.rds that, with matchless grace, 
were floating in slow circles high in the air. '' I would 
like to see the view they are taking in at this moment." 



104 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOrTH. 

" So would I ; they are eagles in the air, and crows on 
the ground," replied the Doctor. " They seem never to 
move their wings, and yet how powerfully they fly, while 
they watch every motion that is going on in the woods 
below them." 

*'Do you want one of 'em?" said Mike, raising his 
rifle from the ground. 

" No, no, Mike ; when God makes anything so beauti- 
ful, let it live." 

" Dinnah's ready, gemens and ladies," called out Pom- 
pey Duffield Sah, with a marked accent on the and^ 
while Jackson's horn played the stave of a march that 
made the dogs howl, and we turned away from the bank 
to the dinner that was spread out on the grass. There 
was cold wild turkey, and ham, and^ sherry wine, some 
excellent hot coffee, and corn-bread and bacon. It 
wouldn't have been a Florida dinner without the corn- 
bread and bacon. Oh, what a blessed thing is hunger, 
when one has the means to allay it, and how contented 
and beneficent one is when the dinner is ended, and how 
pleasant when seated, after a day of rough toil, at a 
rude meal, to have the gentle presence of a woman mak- 
ing the beauty to the rugged scene! Did it ever occur 
to you, fair reader, that if that gentler grace that wins 
and governs man's young love should accompany him to 
his scenes of pleasure, his out-of-door pursuits, and natural 
studies, it would always exercise the influence over him 
that it did when he was a boy ? Do you not believe that 
each would gain, the one a wider field of opportunity, 



THE DEER HUNT. 105 

and a more experienced taste, the other the restraint of 
a presence whose absence is never for good ? 

After dinner came the pipes and a long talk, and then 
as the sun went down, tracking the ivoods with his 
sanguine trail, we packed up our game, one deer to each 
pony, and with Pompey Duffield Sah taking the lead, 
filed off through the shadowy woods for the plantation. 



106 WILD SPOETS m THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER Yin. 

THE FIRESIDE AT FAR AWAY. 
" 'Tis liome -wliere'er the heart is." 

Lou Jackson was not a beautiful girl — much less did 
she deserve the title of pretty. Her eyes and hair were 
both good, though the coarse and irregular eyebrow 
gave a masculine cast to her regard. Her nose was 
short, her mouth almost a line, and her complexion, 
naturally dark, was further injured by a roughness of 
skin that made it resemble a laboring woman's. The 
prevailing pose of her features was thoughtful, at times 
almost .stern, yet once in a long while the lines of her 
mouth would curve, her cheek slightly dimple, and her 
eye would flash out a look of joy, recognition, and 
sympathy, the more gentle for being rare. So, at the 
close of a murky day, the western sky flashes out the 
sunshine of the morrow, and darkens again into twi- 
light. 

She had received the ordinary course of education as 
practised among American girls. A little geography, a 
little history, a little of the natural sciences, a little of 
two or three modern languages, and a little of two or 



THE rrRESIDE AT FAR AWAY. 107 

thres dead ones; a little music, painting, polite litera- 
ture, mathematics, crocheting, moral philosophy, and 
dancing — all in homoeopathic courses; and then was 
launched out into that practical world where one true 
lesson learned in life's school counterbalanced the teach- 
ings of years. 

From the fashionable school she stepped to the mono- 
tony of an interior plantation life. No musical instru- 
ments to play on, no foreign friends to talk to, no foreign 
books to read, even could she read them, where every- 
thing was simple in action, and the bare bosom of the 
world, with its vegetation, minerals, and animal abun- 
dance, was budding and throbbing all around her, and 
the springs of domestic life, its great needs and small 
attainments, its social loves and hates, were open before 
her. Then came the question, " What is my place, and 
can I fill it ? If I claim to be a flattered lady and a wife 
of high rank, I have no beauty and cannot attain it. If 
I am to be a literary Avoman, and make my position by 
my thoughts, I have no education to invent or model 
them. If a mere waif floating on the stream of life, the 
very animals on the banks are better than I." She 
reached out for anything she could do, and turned in 
every way for some recourse against that nothingness 
that swallowed her up — that dreaminess that all the day 
filmed her eye, and all the evening upbraided her. 

At length, one day, the first time coming abroad after 
a severe illness, her mind drank in that confused blend- 
ing of sound, color, motion, and fragrance, that is so 



108 WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

pervading in the early spring, and which affects the 
nerves after a severe ilhiess with so acute a pain. The 
buds seemed expanding with an inherent instinct, the 
birds seemed arranging their social affairs with a high 
intelligence, which had never struck her before. There 
was a relation of one to another, a connection to herself, 
and an apparentness of creation by that Higher Relative, 
that had just raised her from her feeble bed, that seemed 
never so plain or so beautifal as now*. The more she 
pondered and examined, the greater seemed the field of 
thought. She was not idle now. Body and mind grew 
strong together. No one slighted her homely face in 
the fields, and with what aid from books that could be 
had, she wandered forth a thinking, happy, laboring, 
achievmg, student. At last a field was before her ; how 
strange, it had been under her eyes from childhood ! 

The fire was kindled in the planter's house, for it was 
a chilly night ; the rain commenced to fall immediately 
after our return from the hunt, and from the pitch-pine 
branches " the light fell off in hoary flakes," painting 
bright the heavy furniture of the room, and belching 
from the chimney above the house, as from a smelting 
furnace. The room was adorned with implements of the 
chase, antlers, an I rude stores of goods, and yet there 
were marks of a gentler taste in the engraving primi- 
tively framed, stuffed birds, and gracefully-disposed 
Indian weapons, decorated the walls. The interior of the 
mansion was more comfortable than its rough and dis- 
mantled exterior promised ; and from its lonely situation, 



THE riKESIDE AT FAK AWAY. 109 

over sixty miles from any town and more than a dozen 
from any house, it had been apj^ropriately named Far 
Away. The door stood open, the negroes sat on the sill, 
drinking in the conversation and laughing at every joke, 
while within, Lou Jackson, her father, and all his guests, 
sat or reclined around the room as best they could find 
places. 

" Golly, Maussa, dat air buck's a grave-digger ! Da's 
de same deer for sartin dat Blossom fired at two year 
ago Christmas comin', when his gun bus'. Das de same 
deer dat ripped up Snorter and Grip, de best dogs in dis 
county, and now w^ha's dat air he's gone dun dis day ? 
He run Miss Lou's horse w^hare Ave like not see 'em till 
day o' judgment." 

"Lem, you fool," called out Jackson, "hold your 
tongue ; you will get all the boys on the place to be as 
great cowards as you are." 

"I'se no coward, you knows dat's well's anybody, 
Maussa Jackson. Ef de Lord want a brave man, de 
Lord gonter call Lem; but I'se seen a buck run o' nights 
in de range, and he feet struck fire, and when I sees dat 
I comes in, and so'd you, Maussa Jackson." 

" What for gwine contrariwise to de Lord ?" said an 
old negress, whose white head was obtruding in at the 
doorw^ay. 

" De Lord send de debil and de debil come. Dare's 
Maussa Wilson's Ebo Jane, a rael little drum-cuss of a 
nigger w^oman ; no genouwine religion 'bout her, and jist 
afore she die dere, by de door dat look toward de piney 



110 WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 

wood, an old buck— oh, goil j, Maussa ! look in at her ! 
She guv one call and die, and de buck go away into de ■ 
dark woods. I seed dat wid mine own eyes, an' it make 
dis eer hair of mine stan' straight up 

On looking at the crisp, curlmg locks alluded to, no 
surer proof of a miracle was required than the fact that 
they could be made straight, for they were kinked into 
little cocoons of yellow Avhite over the big, black face 
and staring eyes. As this inspii-ed fact was related, the 
negroes, with their credulous susceptibility, edged closer 
in the open doorway to be fully within the circle of fire- 
light, and even Lem had pulled in his legs from the out- 
side of the open window, where he was sitting, and 
turned his body fireward. 

As I looked at the bank of faces at the door, I saw a 
feelino- of horror dash over their countenances that was 
singular to behold ; following their dilated eyes, I saw 
them all fixed on Jumping Lem as he sat in the window, 
though from my position I could see nothing about him 
to excite the feeling. Mike kicked my foot, and I sav>^ 
his eye, with a laugh in the corner of it, turned to where 
Lem was sitting. I leaned forward, and could see in the 
darkness beyond, only partially lighted up by the fire, 
the head and antlers of a large deer. 

Lem had not seen the apparition, but continued: 
" Down on de Waccassasee dare's a deer-path made by 
dat air same buck, and when de dogs cum dere, dey 
down tail an' take de back track, howlin' all de time as 
if dey" 



THE FIEESIDE AT FAR AWAY. Ill 

At this instant one of tlie protruding tines of the deer's 
horns touched the earnest story-teller on the shoulder. 
He looked around, and caught sight of the spectre at his 
side. lie gave a wild shriek, and darted toward the 
door; the negroes, frightened more by his fears than 
what they saw, came crowding in and blocked up the 
door, when Lem jumped into the middle of the circle by 
the fire, crouching at his master's feet, and crying, 
"Oh, Golly! Maussa! Lord a massy, dare h'is! dare 
h'is !" 

The spectre head continued to advance into the room, 
when one of the horns, touching the side of the window, 
it fell down from the pole on which it was stuck, and lay 
on the floor. It was the head of the buck we had shot 
that morning. 

" That is my deer's head," said Miss Jackson. " I was 
having it stufi*ed." 

"That's that are boy Scip's doin's;.he's a queer crit- 
ter," laughed Mike. 

" Get up, Lem, and tell us something more about that 
buck," said Jackson. 

Lem sprung to his feet, and, amid the jeers of his com- 
rades — who laughed at him all the harder because they 
were frightened themselves — he rushed out of the cabin, 
and we heard him running around the house in pursuit 
of the mischievous inventor of the ghost, and giving vent, 
as he ran, to divers threats of punishment, which had the 
effect of rendering Scipio invisible for the rest of the 
niffht. 



112 WILD BPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

Mike picked up the fallen deer's head and examined 
it closely. 

" Why, Lon, child, I never heard of your dressing ani- 
mals," said Jackson. 

" Nor I, flxther, until to-day." 

" What are you going to do with it ?" 

"Make it as correct as I can, and then hang it over 
the front door until I can make a better one. The orna- 
ment is the Doctor's idea." 

" The head is as correctly dressed as it can be," said 
the Doctor. " Don't you think so, Mike ?" 

" Wall — no, I don't," answered the literal hunter. 

" What is it that is wrong, Mike ? It must be in the 
setting it up, for you cleaned it for me yourself." 

" It moit be one, and it moit be the t'other ; but I 
guess it's some of both. Yer see the hair ain't over 
slick — that's my fault. Wall, arter that yer've got the 
eyes a lookm' for'ard, and the head well u^), ain't that 
so ?" 

" Yes," said Miss Jackson, leaning forward. 

"Wall, then," continued her instructor, takmg the 
deer's head on his knee and illustrating his position with 
his fingers, " he's a makin' out somethin' ahead of him, 
and he'll have his ears for'ard to help him, one on 'em 
anyhow." 

" That's true," replied the pupil, with a glance of plea- 
sure, taking the deer's head in her hand and pulling out 
the wires by which the ears were supported. 

" That's the natur' of a deer. I one'st went to Char- 



THE FIEESIDE AT FAR AWAY. 113 

leston and seed more lies than you could shake a stick at, 
and one was a stuffed deer a-feedin' with his flag straight 
up. Wall, ef that didn't make me sick. Sez I to the 
show-man, ' Mister, I'd jist like to tie you to a deer's tail 
in Floridy to show you hoAv they carry their tails ; dod 
rot me if I wouldn't !' " 

" Ha ha ! that is not as bad as my friend the Doctor," 
I said. 

" You had better stop before you go any further, I 
warn you," interrupted the Doctor. 

"You must know," I continued, "the Doctor, early 
one morning in Peusacola, saw two deer feeding in the 
garrison garden on the old Commodore's j)ea vines. So 
he ran down, and imagining that they had come in 
through the open gate and could not surmount the high 
picket that surrounded the garden, carefully closed the 
gate. Then, with his gun in hand, he ran in to call the 
Commodore to inquire whether he preferred them dead 
or alive ; but when he returned the deer were half way 
to the Perdido River." 

"Oh, that is too bad. Doctor!" cried Jackson, as the 
negroes shouted with fun. 

" No, no," said the Doctor, laughing away, " that is 
not all of the story. My friend here Avas there, too, 
j^eeping through the palisades over his rifle, when I shut 
the gate. It was his proposition that I should go in for 
the Commodore, and as I came back, I heard a cap snap, 
his gun had missed fire while endeavoring to kill one of 
the deer, while I was gone." 



114 WILD SPOUTS i:^^" THE SOUTH. 

The mirth that followed this apocryphal story was like 
nothing but the laughter that hails some umisual feat of 
the PoUchinelle, before the gaping circle of children and 
nurses in the gardens of Paris, and it gradually subsided, 
lingering longest furthest from the door, where the 
negro boys could roll over on their backs without re- 
straint, and laugh themselves to smiles, and then to 
return for a fresh draught of fun. 

" To come back to your deer's head," I said to Miss 
Jackson, after the laugh had subsided, " v/here did you 
procure the glass eyes ?" 

*' Oh, father supjDlies them with his broken bottles ; the 
shoulder of the bottle makes an eye, only a little too flat." 

"And the birds on the wall are dressed by you ?" 

" Yes, all of them." 

" And they are truer to natur' 'an a picter," added 
Mike, approvingly. 

" Where did you get your taste for such matters, Miss 
Jackson?" 

" I think I must have got it from associating with 
them, to the exclusion of most other society. We lead 
a lonely life here in the pine woods, sometimes, and 
C I believe that when one has many gifts he does not 
gain from them all as much as he does from one well 
studied." 

" Where did you get your original plan, your first les- 
son in taxidermy?" said the Doctor; "for I have 
studied the art, and it seems to me that I have never 
dressed a bird as well as some you have here." 



THE FIRESIDE AT FAK AWAY. 115 

"I never had any lesson, save what I have read. 
Once, when first attempting it, I sent to Savannah and 
bought a stuffed bird which I pulled in pieces to find the 
secret. But the true teacher is patience. Try again 
every time you fiiil." 

" They have kept well for so warm a climate." 

"That's a woman's secret," said Jackson. "Lou 
bakes her birds m the oven." 

"I'll tell you a joke," said Miss Jackson, "about 
baking birds. One day there was a bird pie in the oven, 
the pride of our new cook, and on looking at it, I found 
it done, and the fire low enough to dry some birds I had 
just set up. Accordingly, I stood them in the oven all 
covered with white strings, in front of the pie. When 
dinner was ready, Dinah went for the pie, but presently 
came running back, calUng out, 'As sure as I's 'live, 
missus, dem birds is out ob de pie, or else dere ghosts 
am standin' dere in dere grave close. Oh Lor' help 
us !' " 

" Your birds were correctly set up, then, if they 
deceived even a cook. What do you do when you are 
where you cannot have the use of an oven ?" 

" Oh, I do the best I can ; use pepper-grass, dry them 
in the sun, and then let them slide." 

" How pleasant it is to have a copy of nature's works 
by your side, so well prepared that it reminds you of the 
original bird," remarked the Doctor, laying back on a 
wooden bench, looking at the hawks over head and 
swinging his feet back and forward under his lounge. 



116 WILD SPOETS m THE SOUTH. 

"Yes," answered Miss Jackson, "and to study the 
positions, and manners of the birds and quadrupeds, so 
that you can copy in your subject the true position and 
figure, and not burlesque them. So, sometimes, what 
would be thrown from father's game-bag to the cook to 
be plucked, or, more likely still, cast away as w^orthless, 
with a little care and study resumes its old shape, takes 
again its natural ^ose, flashes its eye, and remains ' a joy 
forever.' " 

" Do you not believe," said the Doctor, " that beauti- 
ful associations, because beautiful, make the mind, 
by exciting it in that direction, beautiful and gentle like- 
wise ?" 

" No, not altogether. Why, if so, should not the In- 
dian \>e the most beautiful minded of us all ?" 

" Because he has no beautiful moral or mental bases, 
but, on the contrary, thei/ are bad. The soul 
and the mind are greater than the senses, and 
their associations counterbalance. But let the soul 
and mind lie idle, or present no counterbalancing 
force, and then the natural lesson elevates by assunila- 
tion." 

" Oh no. Doctor ; nature is more of an active teacher 
than a mere assimilator. She not only teaches by her 
unseen influence, but she preaches by word, and sound, 
and sight. For Avhat is the unfolding year ?— for what 
the garnered grain, and sapless winter ? It has more than 
a productive use. "Who tells the young Brent Goose, at 
Vancouver's Island, that he wiU find no winter at Tampa 



THE FIRESIDE AT FAR AWAY. 117 

Bay ? And what teaches the saracena plant to shut its 
fingers and gather in its leaves all nourishing insects ? 
Thus, when you see these things day and night, you are 
led to reason of them, and your thought makes you bet- 
ter by a positive judgment. It is no mere assimilation, 
but a refined study." 

" I will propose a question to you," retorted the Doc- 
tor : " why, then, should not the Indians be better men, 
as they see these things day and night ?" 

" Simply because the Indian never had mind enough 
to think or reason at all of such things. You commit an 
error by assuming that, because all these things are 
visible and constant, therefore men of no mind will read 
them aright ; but I think that it is, on the contrary, the 
greatest minds that are the best students of nature, and 
until a mind has received some education, it cannot 
aj^preciate nature to any extent. Listen to the mon- 
strous errors the rustic repeats of what he sees in the 
fields, and then, as the world culminates in a highly reli- 
gious and educated society, see how it gathers, as m 
London, all the birds of the air and beasts of the field, 
together, to * consider their ways and be wise.' " 

As Miss Jackson talked, her grey eye kindled, and a 
blush brightened either cheek. The Doctor raised him- 
self gradually to a sitting position, then to his feet, and 
then he walked across the floor, saying, in his clear, 
hearty tone : " Give me your hand, Lou Jackson ! who 
cares which comes first, the love of nature or the mind, to 
appreciate her, the one is sure to produce the other." 



118 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

" Wall, that's so," said Mike. 

The evening promised a rainy day for the morrow, 
and therefore it was arranged that Mike and I should 
have a still hunt while Jackson would r^de down to the 
coast to see to some stores that had been promised to be 
landed at a given point by a boat from St. Mark's. 

" I think I will stay home to-morrow and set up some 
birds," said the Doctor. 

" You had better let 'em sUde^ Poke," I remarked in 
a low tone. 

" Never you mind," answered the Doctor, with a low 
laugh. " A man's a man for a' that and a' that." 

The negroes were turned out of the cabin, the fire was 
covered, and in three minutes, oblivious of rain or deer, 
all were in the *' land o' dreams." 



THE STILL HUNT. Hd 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE STILL HUNT. 

L'Aurore paraissait k peine, 
Qaand dans la brume k I'liorizon 
Je Tai vu rcntrant de la plaine 
Tout charge de sa venaison. 
Redressant sa large empaumure 
II s'est arrete par trois fois 
Puis il a longe la bordure 
Ecoutant I'eau tomber sous bois. 

As the first light struggled through the clouds and 
the tassels of the pines overhead, Mike and I alone, with 
our breakfasts in our hands, were winding our way 
through the forest. 

We trudged on as best we might over the rolling 
knolls of sand, laced by the long, tough roots of the 
palmetto, across hollows choked with grass and vines, 
and do"s\Ti and up the quaggy sloughs that the waters had 
made while seeking their level in the Ouithlacouchee. 
The tough little ponies scampered along on the level 
land, and where it was muddy Mike would slide to his 
feet and cheer them on with whoop and hulloa, until 
they ran up the banks as fast as they jumped, down. The 
rain had ceased, yet it was not clear, and the drops hung 



120 WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

on all the bushes, or showered down on us from above 
as we struck the young timber. 

Having reached a point of land in the bend of 
the river, the ponies were unsaddled, their halters 
were tied to their knees so that they could not run, 
though giving them ample liberty to graze, and left 
behind with an injunction to "Stay thar, yer sarcy 
critters." 

Again the word was forward. Mike led the way on a 
long stride, his rifle lying in the hollow of his left arm, 
and his body bendmg and oscillating to conform to the 
inequalities of the ground. As he walked he turned 
hither and thither, taking in w^ith his eye everything in 
the forest. At times, he would pick up a leaf here 
and there, giving it a glance, and cast it down again. 
Where the river bent, and we came where we could see 
around the elbow, his walk was slow, and his foot came 
down like a cat's ; when he was in the hollow he ran, 
and almost halted as he rose the succeeding knoll, and 
could take a view beyond. 

As we walked, he pointed to a j)lace in the sod, look- 
ing at me with that communicative glance that said, 
" There is something pleasant." On looking carefully, I 
could just see a mark where the grass was thin, but a 
mark it was, and nothing more ; it might be a natural 
discoloration, or the result of one of the thousand mo- 
tions constantly occurring in a forest. 

"What is it?" I asked. 

Mike picked up a broad leaf, one of those growing in 



THE STILL HUNT. 121 

a dank place, and handed it to me. The leaf was cut 
almost in the shape of the letter V. 

" What does that mean — a deer's track ?" 

Mike nodded. 

" How long ago was that track made ?" 

" Two minutes — 'bout." 

My looks must have expressed doubt, for Mike replied : 
"Look here, now, leaves don't tell lies m the piney 
woods, though I've heern tell they do in books. D'ye 
see that juice comin' out of that leaf thar jist whar the 
the deer's huff cut it ?" 

"Well?" 

"D'yer think them air leetle drops has been more 'an 
a week formin' when they're growin' bigger as ye look, 
and haint run together yet ? Tear another leaf, don't it 
come jist as fast ? Ain't that as plain as a bar up a gum 
tree ? He's a sockdologer of a buck, too !" 

" Now, Mike, look here. I will believe what you say 
about the time, but don't say what you don't know. 
You can have everything your own w^ay here, but there 
are no means in the world of telling this deer to have been 
a buck, so you need not say so till we see it." 

" Wall, now," said Mike, setting down the breech of 
his heavy rifle on the ground, and leaning his chin on the 
muzzle, w^hile he looked at me with an expression of 
pity; "wall, now, ef I had a young 'un, and he 
couldn't tell that he was a scandalous big buck, walking 
alone slowly like out to the feedin' grounds, ef 
I wouldn't claw his back with a wildcat, I would. 

6 



122 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

'Now jist look a here, there's one track by the lance 
leaf." 

"Yes." 

" Here's the t'other on the same side, and here's the 
t'other, and here's the t'other. Wall, that shows he's a 
walkin', don't it ?" 

" Ye-e-s." 

" Thar he's nibbled off that young tree, haint he ?" 

A small birch sprout, of about a foot in height, was 
stripped of its leaves and bark. 

" Ye-e-s." 

" Wall, that shows he was feedin' slowly, and warn't 
the leastwise anxious, and by the way the tracks pint I 
calkerlate he's off for the meadows." 

" Well, but how do you know it was not a doe ?" 

" Cause he writ it up on that j^ine tree on ahead, 
where the tracks are thick at the bottom. Now look on 
the bark about six feet up, and tell me what rubbed that 
bark off ef it warn't that buck's horns — and you better 
believe it was a whopper ; no small buck kin scratch up 
thar." 

I thought a moment, and then the only wonder to me 
seemed why it needed an explanation at all, it was so 
clear. 

" Whare has he gone ? Thare's a meadow across here 
chock full of sweet grass and lily pads, and I reckon he's 
thar, and slathers more." 

A few minutes' walk, and we came on to the verge of 
a natural meadow, bounded on every side by the forest, 



THE STILL HUNT. 123 

and yet smooth and waving as a field of grain, or a level 
prairie. Here and there a water-oak reared itself from 
the grass, twisting its great limbs on every side, shading 
the sward below, and supporting wreaths of mistletoe 
vines covered with waxen berries. But all else was one 
free rustling field, grazed by the deer alone, and mowed 
only by the winter fires or the hurricane. Over the 
grass could be seen the marsh hawk wheeling along the 
level in long slanting curves, while in the distance, where 
a tall tree leaned over the eddies of the river, a solitary 
eagle watched his primeval realm, where 

Unheeded spreads the blossomed bud 

Its milky bosom to the bee, 
Unheeded falls along the flood 

The desolate and aged tree. 

This was a great pasture for the deer, and ever since 
the creation thousands had spent the nights here, retir- 
ing with the heat of the sun to the closer cover of the 
pines. 

" I haint seen that air buck's tracks agin," said Mike ; 
" I rather think he haint got in yet. "We'll go a leetle 
further on to this ridge ; he will likely come down that 
way, I reckon. Come, Yowler ?" and taking the long 
ear of his dog in his hand to prevent him taking to the 
meadow, we ran on to the ridge. By the side of the 
ridge we found quite a well-beaten deer path leading 
through an opening in the fringe of trees that sur- 
rounded the meadow, and through this, from time 



124 WILD SPOETS m THE SOUTH. 

immemorial, doubtless, the great horned herds had 
wound their way in and out at their pleasure. Here, 
too, were found tracks of wild hogs, and Mike pointed 
out to me a broad foot-print of the cougar or panther 
that had been made only the night before. 

It was agreed that I should lie here concealed behind 
some branches with my eye on the path leading from the 
woods, while Mike should go around in the woods and 
see what had become of the buck. In a moment he was 
gone, and I was left lying on my breast, with my rifle 
ready cocked before me, watching the lonely path that 
led into the forest. 

As soon as Mike was out of sight I began to feel that 
intense loneliness and shadowy presence that is often 
with one when in a great forest, particularly if unaccus- 
tomed to its solitude. The stillness, the majesty of the 
woods, the strange insects crawling about, the flickering 
light that complexes the eye, the heart counting the time 
with heavy throbs, the apprehension of making a noise, 
all press on the senses with a bewildering power. I felt 
this sensation, and longed for the deer or Mike, I cared 
but little which. I sighted my rifle, and tried to deter^ 
mine from which way the deer would first come, feeling 
certain he was mine if he appeared. 

As I thus lay putting propositions to myself, I heard a 
loud snort or whistle directly behind me. I turned has- 
tily, and away bounded a buck that had been standing 
apparently within ten feet of me. How I apostrophized 
my carelessness, and watched the waving grass as he 



THE STILL HUNT. 125 

% 

wound among the meadow paths far away on the 
plains ! 

Again I watched, and this time more successfully, for 
over the knoll I could see a pair of horns coming slowly 
forward, though the deer was still out of sight. They 
advanced like a rower in a boat, with measured but irre- 
gular speed, and once in a while stopped altogether. 
Then my heart beat like a drum, but when the horns 
advanced again I felt more composed. At length the 
head appeared above the brow of the hill, then the 
shoulders, then the full length and height of the animal ; 
there was no more doubt — it was the sockdologer of a 
hucli described by Mike. "When it reached the hill it 
seemed to halt for a survey, and viewed the whole extent 
of the woods and savannah. Trees, and waters, and 
waving grass, the cool retreats of low hanging bushes, 
all appeared to his eye like the pleasant meadows to the 
monarch bull, when released from his winter's stall, he 
looks over the farm in the spring. All kinds of nervous 
apprehensions arose in my mind. I feared lest he might 
turn back, and almost called out in my anxiety. I 
dreaded lest he should see me, and crouched to the 
earth to prevent it. Presently, apparently satisfied with 
his examination, he marched down the hill to where I lay 
in ambush. His head high up, his great horns back, his 
step like the stej) of a race-horse, he looked like a march- 
ing king. I could not see any part of his body but his 
breast, and did not like to take a front shot, but waited 
until he should present some other view. But the stag 



126 WILD SPORTS EN THE SOUTH. 

did not intend to turn aside ; he saw his feeding ground 
beyond, green with the succulent herbage of the low- 
lands, where his mates had awaited him all the night, and 
he walked right onward. ISTow he was too near to 
shoot. What should I do ? If he sees me, he will dash 
off, giving me the worst possible shot. My heart beat 
so I could not lay on my side, but raising my gun gently 
on my left elbow, I depressed the breech, and without 
taking sight, when the deer was almost over me, pulled 
the trigger. With the report of my gun the frightened 
animal sprang into the air as though he had been blown 
up by a mine, and then dashed off into the woods. He 
flew over the hills, and just as I had given him up for 
lost I heard the clear ring of a rifle in the direction he 
had gone. It was Mike's ; I knew its voice. What a 
load fell off my mind — the deer was ours ! 

On reaching the place from whence the shot came, I 
found Mike loading his rifle, and the deer with his 
antlers ploughed mto the ground by the force of his 
running fall, and his throat cut. On looking for my shot 
I readily found it in the breast, and the ball had gone 
through the thick part of the neck without doing much 
damage. Mike's had struck him in the head. 

Selecting two small trees that grew from the same 
root, we lifted our quarry up until his horns caught in 
the angle, and his body hung down with his back to the 
tree. Mike then cut the skin in a line from the throat to 
the tail, and also a transverse line down each foreleg. 
Then loosening the neck from the skin, he cut it off from 



THE STILL HUNT. 127 

the head at the first joint, and then pulled the fore 
shoulders directly out of the skin, which, with the hind 
quarters, was left hanging by the horns. When the 
body of the deer was skinned as far down as the loins, 
it was cut off there and thrown aside, while the hind- 
quarters were neatly rolled in the skin with the branch- 
ing horns, and hung on a sapling to await the time of 
our return at night. 

Our original plan had been to drive the deer from off 
the meadows with the dog, we standing at the run- 
ways, thus getting very fair shots on the open plain, but 
by reason of the advanced hour of the day it seemed 
doubtful if this plan would succeed; however, we 
resolved to try it. Therefore we selected two paths, 
apparently much frequented by the deer, and in some 
places worn into channels, and sent Yowler off to hunt. 
The old dog seemed to know his duty well, for he hied 
away with a look at his master, and we could occasion- 
ally see him, where the grass was thin, making long casts, 
and occasionally his mellow voice would be borne in faint 
from the distance. 

Mike was standing not far away, and looking across the 
grass I could see him leaning against a tree surveying 
the scene before us. Afar down in the horizon I saw a 
gang of deer headed by two bucks going out of the 
meadow by some other path on a long lope ; I pointed 
them out with my arm, and a nod from Mike showed me 
he saw the game and understood my gesture. There go 
two herons, blue and grey, flapping up from the grass, 



128 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

and turning tlieir heads first on one side and then on the 
other ; the dog must be in that neighborhood and have 
sprung them, though we cannot see him for the grass. 

There comes a deer ; he is close by before one can see 
he is started — a young buck with spike horns. How 
fast he comes ! once in a while jumping high above the 
grass to view his pursuer. Mike has disappeared behind 
the tree against which he was leaning. I wonder which 
path the deer will take. I raise my rifle ; no he is run- 
ning for Mike. He comes now fast, and close behind 
him is yelping the hound ! he is within shot of Mike, 
running right for his stand. Spang ! rings the rifle ; the 
deer jumps, staggers, halts, and falls. Well done, old 
Red Beard ! next to shooting game one's self, the best 
thing is to see it well shot by some one else. 

Yowler is caught by his master, and sent back on the 
meadows. Hardly had he gone out of sight before I 
heard his yelp again, and a great rustle and shaking of 
some reeds that grew a hundred rods in froiit of me. 
There it is ! one, two, thfee deer — and there goes ano- 
ther — and here comes a third party! The firing has 
alarmed them, and they are off with a snort and a whistle, 
each his own way. One has turned this way ; no, he has 
gone toward the river. There is another ; he is coming 
this way, surely ; yes, here he comes, head up, horns 
back — a noble fellow. "Dear me!" I ejaculated, "this 
is like shooting deer in a park." As I crouched low in 
the narrow pass I was occupying, with a dense thorn 
thicket on either hand, and the grass growing in front of 



THE STILL HUNT. 129 

me sufficiently high to conceal me from view, I heard 
the grass rattle furiously, and out dashed an old 
boar, seeming in a desperate hurry; he ran close by 
me, giving a malicious lunge with his snout, at me in 
passmg; I sprung aside in time to avoid the compliment, 
and gazed after his retreating form with feelings of great 
indignation. The Spaniards of the coast had turned out 
some hogs in this neighborhood in previous years, and 
their offspring, increasing with great prolificness, had 
become as savage as the boars of the Black Forest. 

Before I had recovered my composure, another hog 
came rushing past, grunting and tearing along, followed 
by a whole herd of smaller animals, that thrashed do^vn 
the grass, and jammed past me in the wildest fright ; as 
the last one came, I lost all patience, and fired. The 
crowd was too thick to miss, and I had the satisfaction 
of seeing one tumble over on its back. 'But my satisfac- 
tion was short-lived when there swept by me a beautiful 
deer on a long lope, and running as if playing with its 
2)ursuer. He came so near me I could have hit him with 
my gun, and did not see me until directly abreast ; he 
then rushed onward with a terrified leaj), and was imme- 
diately lost to vicAV. At this instant I heard Mike fire a 
shot, but could not see what he had killed. 

When the dog came in, Avhich he did in a moment, on 
the trail of the deer that had passed me, he seemed 
much worried, and laid down close at my feet and refused 
to go out again. I could not account for his singular 
behavioi*, but, not seeing any more deer on the meadow, 

6* 



130 WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 

I took him by the ear and Ayalked around to where Mike 
had taken his stand, and where he was busy taking off 
the skins of the two deer he had shot. 

" What did you shoot at ?" he inquired, as I came up. 

"A young hog!" and then I told him how the drove 
had rushed upon me, led by the vicious old boar, until 
in desperation I had made bacon of one, and so lost my 
chance at the deer. 

"Some takes kindly to pork," replied Mike, "and 
when hard up I can worry down a leetle roast pig myself 
— but I don't keer to have 'em too often. Howsumever, 
they like 'em at the house." 

So taking up the two saddles of venison, we hung them 
in the woods by the side of the other, and went down to 
get my porker, but, alas ! like the old lady in the nursery 
rhymes, when I came back my porker was gone. 

" I am sure he was dead," I replied to Mike's quizzical 
smile. " He lay there at that spot, and I had my feet 
on him while I loaded my rifle. There's the blood on 
the grass now." 

"What druv the hogs/)ut so fast — was Yowler arter 
'em?" 

" No, they seemed to come alone, and Yowler skulked 
down, trembling, just as he is doing now." 

Mike glanced at the dog, and then leaned down until 
his face almost came against the sod, when, drawing him- 
self partially up, he said, " We'd better make tracks out 
of this corner ; there ain't room enough for a free fight 
heyur." 



THE STILL HUNT. 131 

"To fight what?" 

*' Painter," he replied. 

I looked at the speaker, but there was not the least 
bit of joking in his face. 

" Plow do yon know that it is a panther ?" said I, in a 
half whisper, the skin on my head contracting in spite of 
myself at the idea of the animal having been there where 
I stood only five minutes before in such fancied security. 

" Wall, I know it in two ways," said Mike, in his 
natural hearty tone, but without raising himself from his 
stooping posture, and slowly bringing his rifle to a level, 
" and one's 'bout's good as the tother. In the fust place, 
thar's the mark of his foot on the grass ; and in the next 
place, thar's the old sarpent himself under them are 
bushes." 

I leaned down and followed the direction of Mike's 
eye under the bushes, and truly there was the panther 
crouched under some wild ^^lum-trees^ not forty feet oif 
from where we stood. He was in a sitting posture, and 
one arm was stretched out and placed on the body of the 
hog that laid beside him. There was something hand- 
some in that position of easy grace, with the careless 
claim of ownership that he extended over his j^rize. I 
caught his yellow eye, and could scarcely remove my 
own from the fascination of its glance. lie had the air 
of a sentinel challenging us strangers, and I, for one, felt 
like an intruder, and had a mental desire of apologizing 
and retiring. 

" Jist- keep steady-like," said Mike, in his usual slow 



132 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

lone, '' Don't move llist, but step a leetle away from me, 
and ef I miss liim he will come out, and then you try." 

As he finished speaking, his rifle was at his shoulder, 
and the clear report of the piece was followed by a rush- 
ing bound as the animal came out. Mike drew his knife, 
but it was useless; the panther sj^ent his life in that pro- 
digious leap, and lay dead on the grass. The rifle 
ball had gone through his brain. 

"Ha!" said Mike, with a prolonged accent and strong 
out-breathing that showed the force of his feelings. 
Then, leaning down and laying his hand on the tawny 
face of his fallen foe, he caressed him as he would have 
done a child, smoothing his cheek and lifting his paw, 
and sjDeaking to him in the proud yet tender way he 
would have spoken to his sweetheart. " And ye be a 
purty critter ; yer eyes has babies in 'em. My beauty, 
didn't you know me when you squatted thar? I've 
knowed you, pet, I reckon, when yer were quite a 
youngster. I've seen you sleepin' on my coat like any 
cat. I've watched you almost ever since, and heerd of 
all yer doin's. Yer forgot me, but I didn't forgit you, 
no how at all, little yaller back, and now yer dead, poor 
thing. Wall, wall, we'll all come to that soon, only let's 
have our traps all ready. I wish Lou Jackson could see 
you where you're layin'." 

When thisfuii^ral address was ended, we dragged the 
body out of the bushes into a more open place, to take 
ofi" the skin. The shooting of deer was an eve^y-day 
work^ and they were skinned in a minute ; but the death 



THE STILL HUNT. 133 

of a 23antlier, and the taking off his^robe, is an incident 
that calls forth the liveliest feelings of pleasure in those 
who particii:)ate in it, and only the hunter can understand 
the accent of pride with which Mike at length held up 
in both hands the huge tawny skin, with its pendent 
claws and cat-like head, sayhig, " Ain't that a bed for a 
king ?" When we had completed this work, noon had 
long since passed away, and w^e looked around for a spot 
to dine. 

Near where we had hung our first deer, on the slop- 
ing side of a clay bank, a spring of water rose from the 
earth, " and a clearer one never was seen," which filling 
a natural basin among the roots of the trees that over- 
hung it, poured down the hill in a trickling rivulet, and 
joined by other smaller springs, sought its level on the 
great savannah, where its course could be traced by the 
eye for a mile or more by the line of joint grass and flags 
that took root in its waters. By this spring we carried 
our three saddles of venison, our hog, and our panther 
skin, and sat ourselves down to dinner. Not a grand 
dinner of cold fowl and claret, sandwiches and cakes, 
with which in more favored places hunters in the woods 
regale their inner man, but a dinner that consisted sim- 
ply of a large square of corn-bread, and an equally large 
square of venison steak, but so hungry were we that no 
rich repast, even though spread at Yerey's, at Paris, 
would have been more highly honored, and surely no 
table, even on the Santa Lucia, with the broad bay of 
Naples, and the flaming spire of Vesuvius before the 



134: WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

door, could have been spread in a more graceful place, 
or with a more characteristic view. The deep well 
spring with its seething sands at the bottom churned 
into a constant motion, the trees that for ages had 
guarded that source, the rippling murmur of the brook, 
the soughing of the pine leaves, the broad perspective of 
meadow, with the distant belt of river beyond, so far 
away that its gleam was like the horizon, the nearer 
scamper of the squirrel, or the flap of the heron's wing as 
disturbed by our presence he rose from the flags, all gave 
a landscape to the eye, or a sense of solitude to the 
mind, and occu^^ied us in contemplation for an hour or 
more after the dinner was ended. 

•' Do you think you ever saw that panther before to- 
day?" I asked of Mike, as I tossed him over the tobacco 
pouch. 

'' I'm not over sartin, but I reether spect. Yer see 
thar ain't many on 'em heyar bout, and it was jist two 
years ago when that ere painter cub I guv Colonel 
Brown, at Tampa, vamosed, and then he was two 
years old. This one, you. see, would be nigh on to 
three, and that would jist make it." A long puff or two 
followed from his short pipe, when he said in a musing 
manner, " That air cub left bekase of a fight he got in 
with a soldier at the fort. Yer see he guv the soldier a 
slap, when the soldier struck him with his bay'nit, and 
then the painter jist chawed him up and sloped. Wall, 
now look a heyar, do you see that mark on his cheek ?" 
There was a triangular scar on the animal's cheek, just 



THE STILL HUNT. 135 

under the eye. " That, I calkelate, is that ere bay'nit 
dig. This is the last o' that settlement. Grey Wolf's 
band got the old painter, and the cub I left thar in my 
coat, so I've heern ; the t' other cub, the one I toted to 
Tampa Bay, is this heyar, and that's all the painters thar 
is round these diggins." 

Without precisely understanding the reasoning by 
which Mike arrived at this last affirmation concernino^ a 
wood that apparently might contain a thousand such 
animals without any one being aware of it, I could not 
help smiling at the particularity of his genealogical 
knowledge of this family. 

" Thar's somewhar here about another varmint, and a 
purtier one yet, though tain't of much account as a 
fighter. I've seen his tracks and have promised his skin 
to Lou Jackson, and ef he ain't a ghost I'll git him some 
day, though I've been a month tryin' to find him." 

" What is the animal ?" 

"Tiger cat; a rael likely little critter; yaller with 
black dabs. I reckon he's 'bout the size of a small 
hound." 

" You were in a hurry to make your promises. How 
do you know you can get it ?" 

" Because Lou Jackson wants it." 

" Could you get anything Lou Jackson wanted?" 

" I reckon," replied Mike, with the assurance of a man 
that had never failed in any thing he desired with his 
whole mind. 

" How long have you known Lou Jackson ?" 



136 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

" Goin' on to three years." 

" Where did they come from ?" 

" Oh, Jackson had a big plantation on the upper coast 
somewhere nor'east ; but I've heern say he lost his crops 
and got in debt, and fit a duel, and then cum heyar, 
and built this house, and called it ' Far Away.' " 

" I thought you had known his family longer, you 
seem such a friend of Miss Lou." 

" I have known them only three years ; and some 
folks you know soon, and Lou Jackson is one of them 
kind." 

" She is a pleasant girl." 

" Yes, I can say that! Thar's nobody in Floridy that 
can say so much, and be so sparin' of words. She's 
always the same ; she makes it light all about the Ouith- 
lacouchee when it's black dark everywhere else, she's so 
happy like. Even the Injins, when they come there, 
draw in their claws and act genteel, and that's oncom- 
min for an Lijin." 

" They are very much exposed, living here so far from 
protection, and bands of these Indians roviifg about, and 
sometimes Jackson himself away." 

" No ; he don't leave often unless she goes with him ; 
but many a night I've kept round that house when 
nobody knowed it, jist to know that she was sleepin', 
when these cusses has been about." 

" What did she say to you when she heard of your 
watchfulness ?" 

" How would she know ? Do vou think I would tell 



THE STILL HUNT. 137 

her sicli like stuff? It's natural enougli that I should 
watch fur her. Wall — ^wall — thar are piles o' painters in 
this State purty as this one, but there aint no woman 
that is as handsome as Lou Jackson. That's so ?" 

"Do you know anything about the duel that Col. 
Jackson fought ?" 

" I've heern tell that it was a hard go ; they fired one 
at the t'other till the Colonel bored his man, and then 
he larnt it was all a mistake, and they needn't have fit at 
all ; but who the man was, or what they fit about, I don't 
know. Whar's the terbacker ?" 

I passed the pouch of squirrel-skin over to the hunter, 
and filling his pipe again, he relapsed into a musmg 
silence, while I watched the lengthening shadows, and 
thought over the strange life at Far Away, the moody, 
reckless, hearty, proud planter, and the gentle though 
strange tastes of the daughter. What a wasting, sensi- 
tive, weary heart he seemed to carry, joyous only by. 
turns, and then boisterously gay ! What a cheering 
controlling presence hers, so earnest and frank, yet all 
the while so lively and self-willed ! And the house itself 
was a perfect mixture of roughness and grace, the life 
within contrasting with its appearance, as did the fancy 
of its name with the rudeness of its exterior. No news of 
the world, no society, no lover, no music, the literature 
of the most meagre kind, and yet the whole family 
instinct was graceful and thoughtful, and like to no 
western farm that ever yet was seen. 

As I thus ran on, I noticed the sun was low in the west. 



138 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

" It will be dark soon." 

" I reckon," said Mike, in his usual manner. 

" But we can't stay out here all night." 

" I've lain by this spring right often, but I s'pose we 
may as well go now ; you go ketch the ponies, and I'll 
get their pelter ready." 

I accordingly went after the ironies, which were 
found near where we had hoppled them. As I rode 
back I saw a single buck feeding in the open woods, 
but stopping to attempt a shot, he ran off in the 
direction that we had come in the morning. On return- 
ing to the spring, Mike had the game already bound, 
and balanced so as to hang over the jDonies. The hog 
balanced two saddles of venison, and the panther's skin 
another sadd'ie. After loading the ponies we started 
toward home, Mike promising to get the buck I had 
seen when I went for the ponies. I showed him the 
place where the deer had been feeding when I first saw 
him, and the direction he had taken. 

" Wall, that'll do," he said ; " he's so much nigher 
home." 

In a few minutes after, as we mounted a hill, we saw 
the deer in the distance again, and as we came in view 
he looked at us for a moment, and then gently trotted 
on, and some small galls or swamp holes intervening, was 
soon lost to sight. 

" Thar, he'll do now. Take your pony by the bridle, 
and follow fast right for that gall." 

We came within a hundred yards of the brake, and 



THE STILL HUNT. 139^ 

then hoppling the ponies, ran on to the edge of the 
bushes, that afforded a good cover. Having reached this, 
we passed carefully through, lookmg out toward the 
open land beyond in hopes to see the buck within shot, 
but, alas ! he was too wise for that, and had only stopped 
when fully beyond the reach of harm from the thicket 
close behind. Near by, a turkey-hen was leading a large 
brood of young ones, nearly full grown, clucking and 
hopping along, and running hither and thither in the 
pursuit of spiders and other insects, that showed she was 
utterly unconscious of her dangerous neighbors. 

" Now we'll have to crawl for it," said Mike. 

" Then the sooner we begin, the sooner we get within 
shot," said I, moving forward. 

" Stop," whispered Mike ; " wait till those turkeys get 
away. If the deer sees them run away in a hurry he'll 
make tracks too, for he knows thar is somethmg wrong 
hereabout, and having seen us once, he'll know it's us." 

So we waited patiently until the turkey brood had 
sauntered down the woods, and then emerged from our 
place of concealment. Mike ran ahead in a stooping pos- 
ture, and I followed close behind, running when he ran, 
and halting Avhen he stopped. The first run we made 
was comparatively easy, for an immense pine tree, made 
doubly large by a large grape-vine that wound around it 
and hung in clusters by its trunk, fully concealed our 
approach. Here we took another survey of the ground 
and the game, and then, when a tree intervened between 
us and the head of the deer, which stood with his side 



14:0 WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

toward us, we ran forward again until the deer wagged 
his tail, when we halted, in whatever position we might 
be. 

It may be necessary to explain, for the benefit of those 
who have never learned the fact from deer-stalking, that 
a deer feeds and watches at irregular intervals, and that 
always, two or three seconds before raising his head, 
either to walk forward, or to cast a glance of watchful- 
ness around him, he gives his white tail a quick whisk or 
two. The knowledge of this simple and peculiar habit 
is of immense use to the still-hunter, who is thus fore- 
warned when to advance, and when to lie still. 

Thus by quick and short advances we approached to 
within a very long shot of our deer. My heart was 
beating thick and fast, and the sweat of great men- 
tal excitement stood in drops on my face, and rolled in 
my eyes, causing me to wipe them with my sleeve every 
minute. 

" Now," whispered Mike, " ef yer want to try him, 
yer must crawl alone while I wait ; we can't get any 
nearer together, but mind his tail." 

So Mike laid still behmd the weeds that were shelter- 
ing us, wliile I went on alone. Horatius advancing 
before the Roman army to defend the bridge, could not 
have felt more keenly the prominence of his position 
under the eyes of all Kome, than I did as I stalked for- 
ward, under the keen eye of Mike the S]DOok, to shoot 
that deer. First I had a Httle shrub between me and 
the buck, and about twenty feet ahead ; to this I ad- 



THE STILL HUNT. 141 

vanced safely. As I arrived, the deer whisked his tail 
and looked round. Waiting a moment, to my great dis- 
comfiture he turned his face toward me, and then com- 
nienced eatincj asjain. This was a state of afitiirs that I 
had not anticipated, for it shut me out from a view of 
that barometer tail. However, I calculated the time 
during which he would probably feed, and made a short 
advance. The deer now turned quarteringly toward me, 
and, taking advantage of this change, with my eye fixed 
upon him, I was hastily advancing, when something dis- 
turbed the animal before his usual time. I laid down 
flat on the grass, with my rifle before me, as the buck, 
now within shot, raised his crowned head, and took a 
long and deliberate survey of the ground. There seemed 
to be some latent suspicion in his mind, for, though not 
seeing me, he yet looked all around him several times, 
and then over me, and finally commenced walking 
dii'ectly toward me. I slowly elevated my rifle on my 
left hand, my elbow all the Avhile on the ground. The 
piece reached its level — my heart beat as though it was 
tuggmg with the blood that flowed through it — the deer 
was at a close shot, and all the time coming nearer, yet 
I could not aim correctly. Still on he came toward me, 
his ears turned back and forth, his head stretching for- 
ward, his nose dilating as he snuffed the air, and his eyes 
seeming to look me through. I summoned my courage, 
and held my breath ; every sense seemed to pause while 
I sighted for the white breast not forty yards off". Dear 
me ! the gun was not cocked. A pause was required for 



142 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

this, and I became more nervous than ever. I aimed 
again. A brief instant — it seemed an age between my 
pulling the trigger and the discharge of the piece — when 
the clear crack of the rifle sounded, and the deer, wheel- 
ing around, flew away " as if the wolves of the Apennines 
were all upon his track." 

I looked around for Mike ; there he lay m the weeds, 
and on the end of his ramrod he had been waving a little 
red flag that had attracted the attention of the buck, and 
lured him on to his dangerous position. I saw the deer 
for a mile down the open woods flitting past the trees, 
and I knew I had made a clear miss. On coming up to 
Mike his dry smile glowed in the corners of his eye as he 
asked me, " Did you hit him ?" 

"Without answering the question, I asked him why he 
did not shoot, as the buck was clearly within shot for him 
as well as myself. 

" We've got our pile of deer's meat, and 'nuff is 'nufl[*, 
and what's the use a wastin' ?" 

So we went back for our ponies, and again started for 
home, where we arrived safely late in the evening, to find 
the big fires blazing, and a supper kept all ready for our 
coming. How pleasant the cabin looked, from the damp 
darkness without ! 

" And sweet the music of the step 
That meets us at the door." 



THE FLORIDA POCAHONTAS. 143 



CHAPTER X. 

THE rLOBIDA POCAHONTAS. 

" Their memory livetli on your hills, 
Their baptism on your shore, 
Your everlasting rivers speak 
Their dialect of yore." 

SiaOUBNET. 

The evening meal was ended ; the planter's family and 
the hiinters Were circled around the fire, weary with the 
day's fatigues and enjoying rest as none but the weary 
may. Pipes and cigars were lit, and the negroes crowded 
the door-way, while, as in many a hunting-lodge before, 

" The stag-hounds, vreary with the chase, 
Lay stretched upon the rushy floor, 
And urged in dreams the forest race 
From Teviot Stone to Eskdale Moor." 

" Now for a story, Mike," said Miss Jackson. 

" No, taint my turn. Doctor, slide along with a yarn." 

" No, no ; stories are dealt like cards, always to the 
left. It is your turn, Jackson." 

" Well, what shall it be — anything from a fight to a 
foot-race ?" 

"Let Miss Jackson name the subject," I suggested. 



144 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

" Then it will be love," said Poke, with his blandest 
bow to the lady in question. 

" More likely hate," said the planter's daughter, her 
dark skin flushing at the Doctor's sjoeech. " Tell us a 
tale of woman ; we have the chase in reality every day." 

"As you Avill — woman forever. Throw on another 
log, boys." 

The fire belched up a million sparks to the deep sky. 
The flames started out afresh, and Jackson, putting his 
pipe in its buckskin cover, and drawing himself up by his 
elbows to the convenient support of a log, where he could 
face the whole of his auditors, in a rough, though deep, 
voice, and with occasional gesture, as he warmed mth 
his theme, spoke in the following romantio and poetical 
style : 

" Three times, since the Spaniard came to this comitry, 
has a century rolled its wheel over the Floridas, each 
time burying a generation of oaks, that mature and fall 
once in a hundred years, each time obliterating two 
generations of man — more transient than the trees of the 
hummocks. 

" Noio^ the land is a common, every-day reahty. The 
planter eats his corn-bread in his cabin ; the negro toils 
at his daily task ; the Indian hunts in the pine-land, at 
peace with the settler ; and if there is anything of the 
poetry or romance of hfe in the land, it is to be found in 
the tropical luxuriance of vegetation, and the beautiful 
life of the everglade, and not in the noble daring of man. 

" TTien^ in the Floridas, there was romance in thought 



THE FLORIDA POCAHONTAS. 145 

and action — romance in history and in fiction, m dress, 
in races, and the love of man and woman, and all the 
world was tame when compared with this El Dorado. 
Here was the warrior's field ; here the adventurer's goal; 
and hither came the poet to sing of Eden. Here landod 
the courtly and refined cavaliers of the most cliivalrous 
nation of the earth. In an age of discovery, when all 
the world was intoxicated by those vistas of wealth and 
novelty that the Genoese opened to the ardent, no one 
Arcadian land loomed from the waters of the Occident, 
so clad in purple, so vocal with music, so voluptuous with 
beauty, as this so-called Island of Florida. 

*'Its discovery was wrought by, and illustrates the 
romance of the age. Ponce de Leon was a hidalgo of 
Sj)am — noble, accomplished, and reno^vned. With grey 
hairs had come honors and high command in the Indian 
Islands, when the tales of his mistress, a Carib girl, told 
him of a spring whose waters would bring back the fire 
of youthj and renew his wasted years. This fountain 
was situated on the coast of the great Mexican Gulf, 
where the oak, when dropping into the sea, is trans- 
formed into coral groves, its pendent moss waves beneath 
the waters changed into sea-fins, while, mirrored in the 
sea, the scarlet flamingoes reflect the colors of Paradise. 

" The old knight sailed with his cavaliers in search of 
this fountam, and landed among the mangrove bowers and 
painted birds of the western coast, on Easter-day or day 
of flowers of the year 1512, and thence baptized the newly- 
discovered land by the name of Florida. Not finding the 

7 



146 "WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 

fabled waters, the Quixotic knight and his visionary fol- 
lowers succumbed to those years they sought to reverse, 
leaving a heritage of poetry and fiction to the coast they 
discovered, as rich as the tales of Genii to Araby the Blest. 
They died by shipwreck and wars ; or, if the legends of 
those seas may be beUeved, they still live among the 
coral reefs and keys that girdle the coast, and there, 
having found that long-sought fountain of perpetual 
youth, wander where the coral bowers make forests of 
beauty — where the sands are strewed with gems, and the 
summer never wanes. It is said to be a comely sight to 
the diver there, when the waters are clear, to see the 
Castilian knights, with their costly armor and their trail- 
ing plumes, loitering with the Indian girls of long ago 
under the pink shadow of the coral." 

"What a ripper!" ejaculated Mike. 

"An untimely remark," replied Jackson, turning to 
the hunter, with a solemn wave of the hand, " and it 
savors of unbelief." 

" Wall ! the Gulf is a mighty safe place to yam about 
— for nobody knows enough to know nothin' about it — 
that's sartin. Pile on." 

Thus enjoined, Jackson, after a glance at his daughter 
Louisa's wondering eyes, opened his mouth, and con- 
tinued as follows: 

"Following fast in the wake of the explorer, came 
noble and vassal, for fame, or greed, or heroic quest. 
Velasquez, De Guerray, ISTarvaez, succeeded each other 
as conquerors or visitors to the newly-discovered land. 



THE FLORIDA POCAHONTAS. 147 

"Pamphilo deNarvaez was no mere adventurer. To 
family honors and name he added the higher title of a 
fame won on the battle-field, and wealth and love added 
their charms to bind him to ease. But he also had heard 
of that fabled spring, and from the esplanade of his 
priQcely home in Cuba had seen the evening sky reful- 
gent with what was said to be the reflection of the gold 
of the Floridas; and so, when the wind came fresh from 
the eastward, the morning-star saw his black-eyed lady 
watching from her balcony the lessening galleys that 
were bearing away her chief and four hundred men. 

" After seven days of favoring winds, ^N'arvaez landed 
on the western shore of the peninsula, near where the 
^ Mecaco River empties into Charlotte Bay, and forthwith 
the bands of armed men, with their standards and their 
horses, landed on the beach, and took possession of the 
land in the name of Spain. A curious spectacle did the 
adventurers present. There were the chiefs, with their 
haughty mien, and Moorish war-horses, the soldier with 
his pike and lance — the blue-steel cuirass, the chain shirt, 
and Toledo blade — all contrasted with that tropical coun- 
try of bii'ds and flowers, and the gentle mien of the 
Indians that welcomed them. Around their leader were 
gathered chiefs of noble name : Cobecca de Vacca, the 
treasurer ; Quesada, from his stately house in Cordova ; 
and La Manca, the most gallant gentleman of Navarre. 
There came, also, priests to cure the souls of the be- 
nighted — hooded priests, whose convent stood high on 
the hills of Sierra de Diego, and little boys to swing the 



148 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

incense at the altars ; and hounds m couples nosing the 
scented air T\dth their tawny muzzles. All the parapher- 
naha of glorious war, and the emblems of an ostentatious 
religion, or wild sports, swept by GaspiraUa Island, and 
with the sound of the trumpet and the horn landed on 
the main land. 

" But a short history remains to be told. Treachery 
to the natives aroused revenge. The arrow soughed on 
every wind, hostile bands disputed every stream. One 
battle followed another. The troops were divided in dif- 
ferent bodies, under different leaders, and fought their 
way northward, until all but fifteen of that hopeful army 
found a grave, either on the field of battle or the quick- 
sand swamps. Fifteen, under the command of De Yacca, 
coasted the Gulf, and gained a shelter in the Mexican 
colonies. But one man, a common soldier named Ortez, 
escaped the others' doom. Being left wounded on a 
battle-field, he watched his opi^ortunity, and, as night 
covered the shattered dead and trodden field, he crept 
down to the water's edge, guided by the splash of the 
sea. Here, finding a canoe of the natives, he hastily 
gathered some fruit to support him on his voyage, and 
setting a sail, was soon beyond pursuit. He coasted 
down the shore, only landing at night to gather the 
turtle's and bird's eggs that were abundant on aU the 
islands, until he reached Cuba, and saw once more the 
towers of a Spanish town. 

" A sad day it was in St. Jago de Cuba, when Ortez 
came back with that Indian boat, and the grun tale of 



THE FLOEIDA POCAHONTAS. 149 

disaster. Solemn-moving men, cloaked to the chia, in 
spite of the tropical air, clustered together in the Plaza. 
Lustrous eyes were dim with tears, and duennas hurried 
hither and yonder to gather some scrap of hope for mis- 
tresses, whose lii'st young love was buried in the buz- 
zard's maw. 

" Ortez was summoned to the presence of Nar- 
vaez's widow. In a few moments he had entered the 
quadrangular stone court, and stood in a room where the 
light came in through canopied windows, and the air 
was cool with the splash of waters, whose music brought 
back to his memories the houses of Seville. The stately 
dame of the lost knight sat on a cushion by the window. 
Her eyes were hollow with watching and grief, and her 
voice was solemnly deep and low. Behind her sat her 
daughter, with a black veil shrouding her face. The 
soldier, leaning on his sword, at her word of command, 
told the story of their cruise, of their landing and bitter 
war, he narrated how, one by one, the leaders found 
inglorious deaths by disease, by heat, by arrows, or flood 
or quicksand, and how presently they had none to com- 
mand but De Vacca. 

" ' But your chief— your chief, man ! Where did he 
fall — how did he die — did you kill the foeman that 
struck him, and honor his corpse as a king's ?' demanded 
the proud woman. 

" ' De IsTarvaez did not die by my side, or I would 
have revenged him ; nor was his body buried by our 
band.' 



160 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

"'Where did he die — how — when? Speak faster, 
man.' 

" ' I don't know how he died. They say he died like 
a hero ; and when attacking a fort at Appalachi, with 
his good sword cleared a road so far into the stockade, 
that his men could not get to him, and there he 
remained and fell.' 

" ' And where were you, did you leave your chief, 
heathen Moor ?' 

" ' No ; would I come back to Cuba had I done that ? 
I was not with Narvaez's band ; they had separated 
before into five jDarties.' 

" ' Who was with my husband ?' 

" ' They are all dead that saw him fall, or prisoners 
among the Indians.' 

" ' There were Spanish prisoners among the Indians, 
then ?' 

" ' Yes, they seized three or four ; ' but we counted 
them dead, for they never kept SjDanish prisoners.' 

" ' What then did they do with them ?' 

"The soldier replied not in words, but taking his 
unkempt locks in one hand, with the edge of the other 
he made a circle around his head, and then with the first 
hand gave a twist, and a wave that was horribly signifi- 
cant of the scalping process, that had then but just 
come to the ears of the Spaniard, and possessed, to his 
mind, the double terror of mystery. 

"A groan and a long pause followed this panto- 
mime. 



THE FLORIDA POCAHONTAS. 151 

" * Soldier,' said the lady, ' he was your chief, you left 
him in a hostile country; you do not know his fate — 
will not honor, a soldier's name, tempt you to return, and 
seek to bring some tidings of his death ?' 

*' ' Ha ! where is the honor to all my comrades who 
are buried in those woods ? There is no honor there, 
my lady.' 

" ' Where is your religion man ? You swore on the 
cross in our Holy Mother Church to defend your liege 
and propagate your faith.' 

" ' By My Lady, I kept my oath ; but where there is 
no standard, and even the priest is slaughtered by the 
savages, there is no piety in staying.' 

" ' Have you ever loved since you left the Tagus ?' 

"The soldier's eye glanced quick at the lady's, but he 
did not answer, and the young girl peered from her 
veil beside her mother, on the comely form of the 
soldier. 

" ' Ortez, I will give you the fairest girl in all the colo- 
nies if you will do this one thing for me.' 

" ' I can't. What is love worth if you cannot enjoy 
it ? I have been been a true soldier in many a war ; but 
this is no war. We have lost our ship, our lives, our 
horses, our chief, everything is gone of that array, and 
never a real have we won to repay us all. What, then, 
could I do alone ?' 

" ' Soldier, you are a poor man now, are you not V 

" ' As poor as a muleteer.' 

" Do this for me and I will make you rich.' 



152 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

" The lady's eye was on the adventurer, and noted his 
look. 

" ' Do this for me. I will send you with a pinnace, I 
will name you a lieutenant before you go, and when you 
return, I will pay you here in this chamber two hundred 
ounces of gold. Stay here now as you are, and you 
remain the bankrupt soldier, pointed out as the man who 
left Narvaez in Florida.' 

" Steadily Ortez weighed in his mind his chances of 
life, and the golden sum that was as sure to him on the 
promise of that woman as though belted at his waist. 
His eye looked at the soft light that came in at the wm- 
dow, and the spattering fountain in the court below, 
vacantly, while one could count two score ; and then, 
turning to tlie widow, he said : 

"'I will go,' adding, with Spanish grace, 'and may 
our Lady Mother keep you well till my return.' 

" In a few days the adventurous soldier was again in 
the Mexican Gulf, steering for the battle-fields where he 
had left his chief. He sailed among islands covered with 
mangroves, and pillared on coral, touchmg at every 
prominent point, and threading the broad lagoons where 
the sea-ferns spread their palms to the light of the upper 
air. When opportunities offered, he landed on the 
shore, and tried, by presents and gentle words, to gain 
from the natives the information he desired, but they 
remembered the fierce forays of Velasquez and Narvaez, 
and only treated with the adventurer to betray. He was 
induced one day by the Apalaches to visit the shore, and 



THE FLOEroA POCAHONTAS. 153 

was at once seized ; and being recognized as one of Nar- 
vaez's band, was condemned to death. His frightened 
comrades having lost their guide, made haste to weigh 
anchor, and sailed away to Cuba, glad to escape from 
the terrors of tliat Stygian shore. 

" Ortez was a true Spaniard. His haughty mien, dark 
hair and eye, his active strength and bronzed face, all 
spoke the soldier of fortune, and impressed the feebler 
natives with a respect in spite of their hatred. His dress, 
in the fashion of the day, of embroidered velvet and lace, 
gave him the appearance, to their eyes, of a chief of rank, 
and they rejoiced that they could punish their S23anish 
foes by the sacrifice of one of their great men, and led 
him, bound, to the village of the Appalachean Cacique. 
This town was situated, as near as the old histories of 
those days can inform us, on one of the many islands 
that crowd the mouth of the Appalachicola river. It is 
the more difficult to designate the spot, because, from 
the currents of the river, new islands are formed and the 
old ones are buried in the lapse of time, and the whole 
character of the timber has been changed. Where now 
groves of stunted pine surmount the sandy ridges, and 
the swamj) poplar and the rank titi cover the piles of 
drift-wood that lodge on the upper end of the islands, 
there formerly stood the life-oak, the gum, the maple, 
and the pawpaw, while the deer grass beneatli was pur- 
ple with its fragile flowers, and the blossoms of the run- 
ning gourds that the natives loved to cultivate. 

" Ortez was rowed in a canoe among many an island 



154 WILD 8P0ETS IN THE SOUTH. 

covered with this rich vegetation, and dotted by the rush- 
thatched cottages of the people. He saw stockade forts 
built of reeds frowning down in mimic pomp on the 
waters that had never bristled with more dangerous arms 
than the tomahawk and the arrow. He heard the shrill 
sound of clarionets and horns, and saw waving standards 
of gaudy feathers. The women that rowed the boat in 
which he was bound were dressed in the simple robe that 
befitted the summer land. Their linen, or sea-grass kilts, 
were trimmed with feathers or furs, and sea-shells orna- 
mented their hair and ankles. Their olive colored limbs, 
unshackled by dress, were as graceful in form as the 
children that played on the sand ; and the men in the 
stern of the barge, though warriors, all had that gentle 
manner and expression that belongs to the natives of 
every southern clime. 

" On arriving at the village, the prisoner was led to 
the Indian chief and his council, before the public lodge 
of the village. There was short discussion as to the pun- 
ishment, and no remarks were made by the prisoner at 
the bar why sentence should not be passed, for, in sooth, 
he could not say a word in any tongue they could under- 
stand. An Indian communicated to him, by a symbolic 
motion of shooting with an arrow, that his death was 
appointed ; and then, pointing to the settmg sun, and 
describing a semi-circle with his hand, assigned the time 
for the morrow morning at sunrise. The prisoner was 
led away, little noting the laugh of the Indian child that 
pointed him out to his comrade at play, little heeding 



THE FLOEIDA POCAHONTAS. 155 

the wondering eyes of the Indian gii'ls that followed his 
ste-ps ; for his thoughts were where the Alcanadra River 
was leaping his native hills of Arragon, and the castanets 
clacked to the dancer's tread unner the walls of his home 
in Huesca. 

" But there were others at the village who did not join 
in the verdict of the chiefs. Those simple hearts, whose 
love and faith in the forest, or the town, all the wide 
world over, makes the sunshine to man's gloom, the hope 
to passion's rigor, had seen the stranger, had sorrowed 
for him, and had longed to save him. First among them 
all was the daughter of the chief. Availing herself of 
her rank, she had stood without the ring when Ortez was 
under examination. She had seen his melancholy atti- 
tude, and met the fiery glance of his Spanish eye. She 
had marked his slashed doublet, and the graceful em- 
broideries of his vest. His heavy moustache was differ- 
ent from the smooth-faced warriors of her tribe, and his 
form, by their lithe figures, towered like King Richard's 
at Askelon. Her uncovered bosom throbbed beneath 
the necklace of coral, her deep eyes were vacant with 
thought ; Yahchilane was in love; and the object of her 
love was the Spanish soldier that was to die at sunrise." 

" That's not nateral at all, an Injin woman is a leetle 
wuss nor an Injin man, and is allers down on a pri- 
soner." 

"You Mike!" said Louisa Jackson, with a hushing 
gesture of her hand ; and the hunter relapsed into silence, 
and sat as before, listening to the story, and rolling back- 



156 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

ward and forward, with his arms clasped around his 
knee. 

" It was the old story of Pocahontas anticipated among 
a gentler people, and Yahchilane did not need to throw 
herself under the war-club to gain the prisoner's pardon. 
She came, when the moon was up, to her father's house, 
and with her came one of the young girls of the tribe, 
the friend of the chieftain's daughter. They brought 
a roll of cloth, finely woven from the inner bark ol 
trees ; they brought tatooed gourds, filled with the pre- 
cious stones that Indians prize so well, and w^ampum 
belts of amber-colored shells ; they brought their gayest 
kirtles of the skins of the merganser and wood-duck ; 
and the moccasin, deftly sewed with the porcuj)ine's 
quills ; and when the old man, the chief of the Apala- 
ches, sat at his door sill, and the next eldest chief beside 
him, Yachilane and her maiden threw all these thmgs at 
his feet. Then stripping from her head the long white 
feathers of the egret that shaded her neck, and unwind- 
mg from her waist the cocoa-fibred skirt, she tossed them 
on the pile and sat down in the sand, saying : 

" ' Yahchilane is sick, and will need these things no 
more — she is ready to go with tlie dead that go to-mor- 
row morning^.' 

" The old chief sat silently looking at his daughter ; 
but he understood her not. 

" ' Where will the Young Swan go to-morrow morn ; 
and why is she ill ?' 

" ' She sees a great man, with eyes like an eagle's, and 



THE FLOBIDA POCAHONTAS. 157 

hair like a bear's — with a mantle of moleskin and gold, 
and a silent tongue — he is alone and a stranger — and to- 
morrow he dies ; and Yahchilane would rather hunt with 
him in the Happy Land than stay here alone.' 

" When the old chief heard this, he knew what the 
offering meant ; for it was all of his daughter's goods, 
and all that she and her maidens had woven through the 
year. He knew how fast love comes under a tropical 
sky, where the blood is hot, and how far the wild feeling 
would carry an Indian girl. He remembered the days 
when Yahchilane's mother was a maiden ; and he turned 
away to his brother chieftains, and left his daughter still 
bent on the sands. 

" At a summons hastily sent, the warriors came again 
together, and sat as before around the door of their chief. 
They kindled a fire, and the flames flashed red over many 
a reed-covered house — over the pickets and lagoons, and 
the stUl bowed figure of girl. None looked at the chiefs 
daughter, though all saw her sitting, and wist why she 
remained ; and then they talked long and slowly, and 
from mouth to mouth passed the pipe, fringed with eagle 
feathers and the long beard of the turkey-cock. Hardly 
would it have fared with the Spaniard if they had con- 
fined themselves to his deserts — for the cruel wars of 
Narvaez were fresh in their minds, and they remembered 
Anta, and how their kinsmen had fallen there under the 
arquebus and the long Spanish blade ; but when they 
frowned and looked down, they still saw the young girl 
in her beseeching posture, divested of her robes, with 



li)8 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTE. 

her face in her hands ; and then- hearts failed them, and 
they consented. The council again broke up, and the 
old chief, raising his daughter there under the palm trees, 
gave her the life of her captive. 

" When the morrow's sun glinted athwart the persim- 
mons and sycamores, Ortez was again brought before the 
council. But how diiferent the scene ! His eye was bright 
and hopeful — his step as proud as a Don ; and in every 
corner and on every face, fell his glance in pleasure and in 
love. How had he learned the change m his fate ? Who 
could tell him that he had been pardoned, when none in 
all the land spoke a word of his tongue ? When he was 
led before the council, Yahchilane stood beside her father 
arrayed in her brightest dress. „ Ortez walked to her, 
and .raising her hand to his lips with the dignity of a 
cavalier, kissed it and drew her to his side — she was 
already his wife. And all the chiefs, the women and 
children, understood that mute ceremony; and they 
clapped their hands and shouted unintelligible words, 
and Ortez and his young bride were the fairest and bra- 
vest for many years of all the Appalachians. 



w 



THE FLORIDA POCAHONTAS CONTINUED. 159 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE FLOKIDA POCAHONTAS CONTINUED. 

" Pray how comes love ? 

It comes unsought, unsent. 
Pray how goes love ? 
That was not love that went," 

"Among races but little advanced from a state of 
nature, no human quality excites greater reverence than 
personal bravery, and Ortez inheriting this power as a 
natural birthright, soon sat in the first ranks among his 
adopted people. He had to throw aside his arquebus for 
lack of powder ; but acquired the art of shooting the 
bow, and flinging the metal ball, with as much accuracy 
as his instructors. He still retained his basket-hilted 
sword, and his shirt of link mail ; and in the different 
wars of the tribe, there was none who could strike a 
surer blow, or stand longer in the breach, or was greater 
feared for his prowess than the adopted Spaniard, who 
rose to the position of second chief of the nation, passing 
those who were immeasurably above him when he began 
his race. Some were proud of his young renown ; but 
others, as in every land, imputed their own subordinate 
position to the just honors showered on his head, and 



160 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

were proportionately jealous. But honor or jealousy- 
made no difference in the love of his wife — the same 
gentle, passionate kiss greeted the soldier if he came 
back honored or suspected. It was a woman's love, and 
it flickered not ; and when angry voices told of Spanish 
aggressions and coming wars, and pointed to him, she 
merely said : ' He is not a Spaniard, he is my love.' 

" There had been a fierce battle fought between the 
Yu2^aha tribes and the Apalaches, in which the latter 
had returned with not their usual success,- bringing home 
with them the bodies of many of their warriors. They 
came to the village with all the insignia of woe, beating 
of drums, formed of the sections of hollow trees covered 
with deer skins, and the mournful blast of their conch- 
shell trumpets. 

"Wealuste, the great black water chief, had been 
killed, and they placed him on the shore, with his 
arrows and his quiver, his knife and his eagles' plumes, 
and a goodly store of chinquapin nuts and maize, to 
support him on that long journey to the happy Hunting- 
ground that he was to make in darkness and alone. His 
body was sewed in deerskins, pictured with the scenes 
of his life, and then placed in a wooden canoe formed 
from a cypress log. This canoe was fixed on upright posts, 
and the warrior was left to float away, as a chief should 
go, to that silent realm that lies beyond our ken. But 
for forty days and forty nights, or for one whole moon, 
the corpse was to be watched by comrades of equal rank 
with the deceased, so that neither beast nor bird dis- 



THE FLOKIDA POCAHONTAS CONTINUED. 161 

turbed the dead. This is a part of the simple faith of 
the tribe ; and they affirm that after decay has taken 
the body, the departed chief is safe beyond earthly 
harm. 

" Ortez was the first in order that had assigned to him 
this honorable duty, and in the early part of a smnmer 
eve he took his post by the dead man. The sun laid 
down in his golden bed in the western waters, and the 
stars one by one stepped to their places in the sky, as 
the watcher paced to and fro by the side of the scaffold- 
ing where the dead chief slept. He heard the distant 
wailing of music from the village, and the nearer hooting 
of the owls, and the honking of the herons from the 
wood. He saw the pawpaw wave its purple bells between 
him and the sky, and the green balls of the buttonwood 
looked liked the olives on the hills of his native land. But 
it was not of the storied peaks of Spain the soldier was 
then thinking — nor was he listening to the twittering of 
the birds in the reeds. He was watching the path that 
led toward the village, and his heart was beating thick 
and heavy with the anticipation of meeting some one 
that was fairer than the pawpaw bell, and dearer than the 
towers of his native town. He listens on his beat witli 
one foot raised — he turns his ear aside, and his thin nos- 
tril quivers like that of a horse. He hears a splash in the 
water — it was not the grey duck. A canoe touches the 
shore, and a girl steps out on the strand. Her luminous 
eye is half veiled by its lashes — her limbs are trem- 
bling with delight. She falls into the arms of Ortez, and 



162 WILD SPOETS m THE SOUTH. 

after an instant of fainting embrace, they turn aside into 
the Ilex groves that fringe the bank of the lagoon. • 

" ' Ortez, does not honor call thee to the dead man's 
side ? Ortez, does not thy wife's low voice, that saved 
thee once, beseech thee now ?' 

" Ha ! who hears voices pleading in the mad tumultu- 
ous hours of night — thought comes with the bare-faced 
morn. The glare of the torrid day is for rest, and 
penance, and prayers ; and the tropical night is pas- 
sion's own holiday, when love and hate roll like the 
sea." 

" Hold there, and turn doTVTi a leaf," called out the 
Doctor. " That's pure error. It is the day that is made 
for action, ambition and hope— far reaching pride, and 
quick deeds come with the sunshine. Then man does 
his works for good or evil ; but when the day is gone, 
the grey of twilight, the chill hush of voice, and emble- 
matic sleep, bring thought and repentance. His good 
spirit comes to him then, and whispers of errors done, 
and cools his ambition ; and, if he is a true man, he says 
his prayers, and " 

" Goes to bed," laughed Jackson. " That's all very 
nice for a man who lives in a land where water freezes 
after dark, and nobody but a bear can keep out at nights 
without the ague. That is not the way the hot blood 
rolls in the Creole veins ; nor was it the way that the 
Spanish soldier reasoned with the Indian girl. Where 
was I ?" 

"Ortez had just met the Indian girl." 



THE FLORIDA POCAHONTAS CONTINUED. 163 

" All ! yes ; Jumper-boy, give me a light." 

Taking the stick from the hand of his negro, he lit 
his pipe, and resumed the story. 

" That young Indian girl had left the village, as 
quietly as the dew, her moccasin had made no foot-fall 
on the path, and her paddle scarce splashed the lagoon. 
When she met her lover, their voices were as low as the 
eddy of the wave m the river ; and when she parted, 
and took her course back to the village, though her 
speed was slow, and her stroke was languid and uneven, 
yet still, her boat passed like a shadow beneath the low, 
arching titi boughs, and the hanging folds of the Spanish 
moss. But, for all this, an eye was on her in the dark- 
ness, and an ear heard her very breathings, and wlfen she 
landed, and her bark canoe was hidden in the joint-grass, 
she passed so near Yahchilane that the tails of fox-squir- 
rels, that fringed her kirtle, touched the shoulder of the 
young wife. 

"The girl, once in the path toward the village, Avalked 
swifter still, now and then pausing to listen, when in the 
deeper shadows. On her route, she crossed a dense 
grove of wild plum trees, where the scarlet fruit covered 
the ground, and the low-reaching branches made a sha- 
dow as dark as a stormy night. When in the centre of 
the grove she started, uttering a quick, aspirated sound, 
for a hand was laid on her shoulder, from behind. She 
turned quickly, but could not see who it was, the grove 
was so obscure. 

" ' Who is it ?' she demanded, in a low voice. 



164: WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

" ' An eagle who had a mate,' said Yahchilane, in a 
voice so quick and fierce that the young girl could not 
recognize it, though she cowered from the threatening 
shadow and rasping voice that continued. 'And who 
are you ? The wild cat that killed him.' 

" Nothing more was said, though the mocking-birds 
that roosted in the grove flew frightened away. If any 
more, there was, the lamentations from the town, and the 
hollow drum, prevented it from being heard. And then, 
down among the mourners, with her proud head at its 
uttermost height, and her black eyje flashing fire, strode 
the chieftain's daughter. Old chiefs lay there with their 
lips in the dust, but hers were as proud as a con- 
queror's ; the women of the tribe were there, with dis- 
torted faces, beating T\'ith hollow canes the war-drums oi 
the Apalaches ; the conch shells uttered their loudest 
wail, and the faii'est maidens sat, in their shame, 
uncovered in the sand ; but with no semblance of sorrow 
on her sovereign face, Yahchilane walked among the bon- 
fires that lighted all the town, and across the council- 
lawn, and went into her father's house. 

" The next morning, when the young girls of the vil- 
lage, in laughing troops, with palmetto baskets, wound 
down the path to gather fruit for their simple meal, they 
found one of their number dead in the grove. A knife 
of fish-bone, with a beautifully carved handle, was driven 
in her breast, so deep that the point came out behind, 
between her shoulders. 

" Hardly had the news been told, before a young war- 



THE FLOKroA POCAHONTAS CONTINUED. 165 

rior came rushing into town with a tale, whose horror 
exceeded even the crime of murder. 

" It appeared that the relief-guard that went out 
early in the morning to take the place of Ortez, at the 
tomb of the dead chieftain, found the Spaniard absent 
from his post. On coming to the scaffolding they dis- 
covered the canoe overturned, and the body of Wealuste 
dragged out and mutilated by some Avild beast. Depth 
of all disgrace ! the face that had fronted a hundred 
battles had been mutilated by a carrion wolf. Where 
was now the soul of the chieftain in the shadowy land ? 
"What great doom was hovering over his people for 
this neglect ? 

" As the warriors wondered and mourned, and hastily 
gathered up the body of their dead, Ortez was seen 
coming back from woods, draggmg the body of a huge 
grey wolf. The animal, while making off with its prey, 
had been pursued by the soldier, wounded with an arrow, 
and killed with a dagger, after severely tearing the arm 
of his antagonist. Ortez could give no explanation of 
how the animal had succeeded in mounting the scaffold, 
unobserved, or what he was doing during the scene of 
sacrilege. The fault was fearful, and the Spaniard was 
bound and dragged back to the village. Again he was 
the outcast criminal, chained and reviled. Kow, all the 
suspicious spirits that mistrusted his prosperity gloated 
over his fall, and reviled his situation. They called up 
every misdeed that had come to their knowledge. They 
cited his Spanish origin ; and reasoned, that because he 



166 WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 

was one of their natural enemies, the comrade of Nar- 
vaez, and the comitryman of Velasquez, therefore he had 
permitted this unpardonable sin, and brought down the 
anger of the Great Spirit on the tribe. 

" Justice is not slow of foot among simple people, and 
that very evening, while the young mistress of the sol- 
dier was wrapped in fawn skins, and sewed in palmetto 
leaves for her long sleep, her lover was brought to trial 
before the chiefs of the village. 

" The great fire of loblolly j^ine climbed up in the air, 
and lit the scene with the whiteness of noon. The bam- 
boo and grass cottages; the overshadowing cabbage 
palms, with their colossal trunks and spike leafed crowns; 
the solemn circle of chiefs, and the background of 
women and young boys, formed a great picture glow- 
ing with the colors of Rubens. 

" Ortez stood in the centre, bound to a stake. He 
appeared the same man as three years before, when he 
stood in the self-same place. He wore the same steel 
shirt, the same fierce look of pride; and from his 
ragged arm, the blood, unnoticed, dropped slowly on the 
ground. 

" The warriors smoked long and doubtfully ; and when 
they had done, and the pipe had been lain down before 
the cacique, they spoke their views with the gravity and 
sententious eloquence of Roman Fathers. 

" When all had finished, Ortez replied. His words — 
in the Appalachian tongue — were broken, though his 
voice was deep and clear. He recounted his deeds, and 



THE FLOKIDA POCAHONTAS CONTINUED. 167 

alluded to his offence in comparison ; but the oldest men 
shook their heads, for the soldier never gave any reason 
for his neglect, or told Avhether he was absent or asleep, 
or how that shameful fate came to pass. 

" He alluded to his wife, calling her by name, when a 
step without the ring drew all eyes in that direction. Yah- 
chilane stood in front of her husband, as beautiful as a pan- 
ther. She tore off from her shoulder an embroidered sash, 
which is worn by the married women of the tribe to 
support their infants at their back, and which is the dis- 
tinguishing badge of the matron among the Appala- 
chians, and tossing it in the circle, it fell at the feet of 
her husband. She never said a word, but her steady eye 
was on the Spaniard, and it did not fail in its effect, for a 
tremor passed over his frame, so that the links in his mail 
rattled together ; and all the chiefs, and all the women of 
the tribe knew that Yahchilane renounced her husband. 

" There was no more doubt in the council. Ortez was 
condemned to death at daylight, and was led away to 
confinement. 

"The council fire had burned low in the Apalache 
village, and the few smoldering brands gleamed among 
the ashes, or sputtered brief jets of flame and smoke, 
like the smoldering passions that tossed the sleepers 
strewn around in the open cabins, still dreaming of the 
stirring events of the day. The sentinels by the fort 
walked backward and forward, or leaned on their thin 
lances tipped with the spikes of deer's horn, tasting in 
anticipation the savage pleasures of the execution of the 



168 WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

coming morn. The young moon had set, and millions of 
frogs and peepers in the marsli filled the air with their 
shrill calls, and forewarned the rain that was coming up 
with the easterly wind. Heavy masses of damp fog 
rolled in from the sea, and left the palisades of the fort, 
and the zizanea grass that grew from the water at its side, 
wet with their soggy breath. It was drawing toward 
morning. 

" Within the adobe cell of the fort, the condemned 
man sat on the ground; and if a man's mind is ever 
occupied with his coming destiny, his must have pictured 
the approaching execution, of which he was to be the vic- 
tmi. The stake and the fagot, the red-hot brand, the 
pricking reed, the scalping-knife, the gauntlet, the jeer 
and the death-song, had all been familiar to him in his 
short episode of Indian life. If the southern savage was 
of gentler mien and comelier appearance ; if his women 
were fairer in face, and more lustrous in eye, than their 
more northern tribes, they were in no wise mferior in 
their ferocity of punishment to their prisoners. Even 
the Spanish inquisition was not more refined in cruelty. 
Well might Ortez ponder his death, and mumble long- 
forgotten fragments of Latin prayers. 

" There was another in the Indian to^s^Ti, who kept 
vigil that night. 

" Yahchilane, the young, the beautiful daughter of the 
cacique, who had been loved by many in her tribe before 
the hated name of Spain was heard — she who had saved 
the prisoner's life — who had taken him from death to be 



THE FLORIDA POCAHONTAS CONTINUED. 169 

her lord and chief m the land — who had cradled his 
head on her bosom — who had borne him sons — who had 
been deceived and slighted — who had risen in her 
wrongs, and condemned to death the mistress and the 
husband — she, the fierce, proud, vindictive heart, and 
woman withal, through the moonlight and the fog, 
roamed and w^restled with her mner self. There was no 
prouder blood from Natchez to Honda Keys ; and for 
four and twenty hours it had coursed through her veins 
Hke rivers of fire. Had she met her husband and the 
native girl together, she would have slain them both. 
When she saw his blood flowing from his wounded arm 
in the council ring, she sorrowed only that she had not 
made the wound from which it flowed. Had the coimcil 
acquitted the prisoner she would have tracked him like 
a hound ; and now her wild delight made her fevered 
step carry her to and fro, like the panther that sweeps 
his tail while watching to leajD. Down by the fort she 
went, and away on the point, wading into the water- 
grass, until she seemed Hke the Naiad that lives under 
the sea. Then she walked back again with a long, elas- 
tic step, eyeing the palisades and the sentinels, her kir- 
tle draggled by the dew, the long plumes in her hair 
broken on her shoulders, and her symmetrical limbs cut 
by the sword grass. Another turn would take her to the 
lagoon, where she had watched her husband's trysting, 
and then again she flitted through the plum-trees, where 
still a dark stain lay on the grass. So back and forth stalks 
a tiger-cat, when the spring water intrudes on the island 

8 



170 WILD SPOETS m THE SOUTH. 

where she has dropped her young. Thus along the bald 
cliff dashes back and forth the mother eagle, when from 
below she sees the hunter patiently climbing. 

" The night gradually passed away. The big wave 
that the Southern tribe declares comes landward when 
the god of night turns to go back in the sea, had bro- 
ken along the shore with a hollow roar, and the marsh 
rosemary had turned its petals to the east to await the 
rising sun. 

" Yachilane noted these tokens of the hours. She had 
taught them all to Ortez, and they had heeded them 
many a night when fishing in the lagoons. He had nar- 
rated for her the legends of Spain, and the wild Moorish 
pranks that haunted the old towers of his native town, 
when the chimes tolled midnight. She had plumed for 
him his arrows, and softened his tongue to the liquid 
accents of her language ; and he in exchange had sung 
her fairy tales, and drawn on the sand the outlines of 
great houses and sailing ships. He was a handsome man. 
How his great moustache curled over his chain mail! 
How he took the arrows and gave the blows in battle ! 
How proud she had been at village galas ! How sad at 
distant forays ! How her heart had yearned to him in 
that second love, when his child had tugged at her 
breast, and they three had laughed together ! 

"Sad thoughts these to the bitter woman, and she 
stopped in her walk, and leaned against the palm- 
biees. 

"Yell, and curse, and seething iron probed in the 



THE FLOEIDA POCAHONTAS CONTINUED. 171 

quivering muscles, while the naked wretch feels the lick- 
ing flame. 

" Ha ! had he not slept in her arms many a night and 
day ? And up and on dashes the tortured wife, balanc- 
ing her hate, that was of her race, with her heart, that 
was of her common motherhood. And the hours waned, 
and sick and hot the wind came in, and the odor of the 
honeysuckle and the water-Uly were oppressive to the 
senses. 

" Chatte Echo, the Red Deer, was a young chief of 
the Apalaches, of a noble name and tried courage. In 
Chatte Echo's cabin hung the skins of ten panthers, and 
behind his house stretched a field of maize and melons 
that was smaller in size than none but the cacique's. This 
warrior had loved Yahchilane ; but when Ortez came to 
Apalache, his suit was discarded ; and ever since then 
he had remained unmarried. He had always been an 
enemy to Ortez, and was now one of the sentinels that 
watched over him in prison. Posted on the side toward 
the sea, from the low rampart where he stood he could 
look out on the water and down into the inner fort where 
Ortez sat. A proud man was Chatte Echo that night, 
and none in all the band would guard the prisoner surer. 
As he was leaning on his spear and thinking of his re- 
venge, a brown canoe floated up from the water, and 
among the bending reeds. It came so whist the sentinel 
did not hear it, and the fog was so heavy he did not see 
it until it touched the wall, and an Indian woman stepped 
on to the parapet. Chatte Echo would have struck at 



172 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

her with his spear, but she seized his arm, and, bringing 
her face close to his, he recognized Yahchilane. 

"A moment's pause followed this strange interview. 
She seemed to be studying him ; and he Avas wondering 
at her. Had she attempted force, he would have called ; 
but her pleading look kept him silent. A little of the 
old love seemed softening his eye, and the touch of her 
hand thrilled his arm. 

" ' Chatte Echo, you have my husband here, let him 
go.' Her voice was low and inquiring. 

" *• Sooner a wild cat when I had my arrow drawn to 
shoot,' rephed the warrior, in a bitter tone. 

" ' He shall flee us, and will trouble you no more.' 

" ' He can trouble me no more than a few hours if he 



" ' You refuse me this, and you Avill be my enemy.' 

" ' I am your enemy now,' said the warrior, gloomily. 

" ' No, Chatte Echo ; you are my friend,' wliispered 
the Indian woman, in her lowest tone, laying her arm on 
his shoulder. 

" The chief's voice trembled, as he replied : * Where 
will be your friendship when you get your lover back?' 

" ' Ha ! he is no lover to me !> said the woman, in her 
quick, fierce mood. * Listen boy ! that brave is a wolf — 
yet he must not die — I do not love him — he is no more 
of mine — let him go, and he will flee, and — Chatte Echo, 
I i\dll love you. Refuse me this, and I will hate you. 
No one will know it — ^he A\ill take that canoe and go 
without a trace, and the dawn will find him leagues away. 



THE FLOEIDA rOCAHONTAS CONTINUED. 173 

Say it quickly, chief; for the au* is grey, and the gulls 
are going seaward.' 

"There was a hesitation in the warrior's eye, and 
doubt, and hope, love and hate, chased each other over 
his tawny face like the fog-clouds that were scudding by. 

" ' How will I know your face ^vill be the same to-mor- 
row ?' he inquired, doubtingly ; ' the doe may flee with 
the buck.' 

" ' Keep me here — take me now — I am yours, Chatte 
Echo !' 

"The wild light lit up the coal-black eyes of the brave, 
and the prisoner was free. Ortez silently hurried out of 
his cell, and steppe.d on the low rampart, saved once 
more. He saw his wife, and recognized her as the means 
of his deliverance, and, with the quick perception of a 
reckless adventurer, accepted the chance without a word. 
He stood in the canoe, with the paddle in his hand, and 
awaited, as for his wife to enter with him, while the 
young chief stood by her side at the water's edge. She 
leaned down to speak to her husband, and her voice, 
necessarily low, was so distinct that not a word was lost. 

" ' Sail south to Macaco's land in the Great Bay — stop 
not for your life, and tell Macaco who sent you.' Then, 
in a lower and a harsher tone, she continued: 'The 
canoe you are in carried your mistress to see you at the 
grave last night. She is dead now — stabbed while her 
lips were yet wet with your kisses. Go, hound of a 
Spaniard, or I may stab you, too.' The last words were 
fairly hissed by the woman, the old tide of hate wellmg 



174 WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

high and fast as she saw the Spaniard safe again. Ortez's 
countenance blanched under the swarth of years. Chatte 
Echo gave the light canoe an impetus with his foot, and 
shoved it out into the lagoon. Her eyes followed the 
spot where it disappeared, her outstretched arm trembled, 
she staggered and fell into the arms of the young chief 
who carried her into the fort. He had won her." 

" I don't Hke that story, father ; it gives a low ideal 
of woman." 

" But, child, remember it is savage woman that I tell 
of; you can't paint a crow green." 

" How much is true ?" asked the literal Doctor. 

" Is it not all written," answered the narrator, " in the 
faithful annals of Garcilasso de la Vega ?" 



THE BATTUE ON BONDA KEY. 175 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE BATTUE ON BONDA KEY. 

" The stout Earl of Nortliumberland 

A vow to God did make, 
His pleasure in the Scottish woods 
Three summer days to take." 

Chevy Chase. 

As the Ouithlacouchee River emerges from the bayous, 
lakes, swamps, and drowned lands, which it has drained 
for many a square league, and reaches the salt water, it 
widens its bed, and harassed by the heavy beat of the 
sea, deposits its accumulation of vegetable matter with 
the sands of the ocean in little islands, that are presently 
covered with the rankest vegetation. There grows the 
cane like a gigantic grass, and the cabbage palmetto 
there rears its huge, twisting, bayonet bristling trunk- 
like the fanciful verdure of Utopian land. Sometimes 
these islands are based on the sand, and are as stable as 
the main land, but again they are the mere accumulations 
of floating vegetable matter, rank weeds, and decaying 
rafts of trees, lashed together by sea-weeds and clamp- 
ing vines, and resembling those floating gardens that the 
ingenious Celestials moor in the great rivers of China. 
The aquatic plants and nameless vines cover them with 
festoons, and a large shoot striking down in the water 



176 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

anchors the raft, which will float hither and thither by 
the wind, closing or opening some water passage, to the 
great discomfiture of the bewildered explorer. 

Beyond these ranker islets, and acting as outer piers 
or breakwaters to the still inner bays, lie other islands 
in long reefs, covered by sea grass and a smaller growth 
of trees, and washed on theii* outer sides by the surf of 
the Gulf. All of them abound in game of every kind, the 
fame of which led our party of hunters with our hosts 
for a few days' hunting and sporting, bringing tents, 
dogs, and servants enough to beat up all the woods on 
the Gulf Coast. These species of hunts are frequent in 
the Southern States, where time is not regarded with the 
monetary eye to value with which it is measured in Doc- 
tor Franklin's proverbs, and where an ample range of 
unclaimed ground is open to all that choose to come and 
enjoy it. Such hunts are called marrooning, and we 
were marrooners as soon at we had reached the low 
sandy shore of Bonda Key, and pitched the two white 
tents that formed our travelling homes. 

One hut was occupied by Poke, Jackson and myself, 
the other by Lou Jackson and her girl Kosa, a bright 
negress of the same age as her mistress, and around the 
big fire a large row of screens of blankets or evergreen 
branches sheltered the dozen negroes that constituted 
our party. As to Mike, he always preferred to carry up 
his canoe, and elevating the side next the fire on a stick, 
would crawl under it and sleep hke an alligator. 

In many respects our camp was more orderly than the 



THE BATTUE ON BONDA KEY. 177 

plantation house we had left. There were no sheep to 
tinkle and bleat away the hours of the night, reminding 
you of your bed in the Tyrolean chalet, with all the 
herds stabled beneath you. There were no young 
negroes constantly disputing or tumbling under your 
feet ; there was no old Aunty Blase tyrannizing over your 
culinary department, and ordering around all the boys 
within reach. But we still had one nuisance, in the 
shape of dogs — 

" Both mongrel puppy, whelp and hound, 
And curs of low degree " — 

melodious hounds that bayed at the moon ; sullen dogs 
that snapped at your heels ; insinuating, dogs that crept 
under your tent and into your arms when half asleep ; 
spiteful dogs, with their voices attuned to the sharpest 
chords, and that came under Shakspeare's definition of 
being " fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils." AU this 
mongrel herd had been kept in peace at home ; some were 
quartered away from the house, some were chained, and 
others meditative or sleepy. But here, as sure as plea- 
sant harmonies came over your soul, and the hush of 
sleep fell on the camp, and the loudest sound abroad was 
the flitting bat and droning sea, some canine tyrant 
would infringe the etiquette of the brotherhood, and 
immediately there would break out a most fiendish tur- 
moil of snarls, yells, bays, howls, growls, and yelps, 
intermingled with the babble of the negroes' voices and 
the whacking of sticks, and when you were fully awake, 

8* 



178 WILD 6P0ETS IN THE SOUTH. 

and had seized your gun, or a paddle, determmed on 
deeds of revenge, peace would be declared in a loud 
voice ; in some such phrase as 

" Ketch you yowlin' again. Tink Ise got a stick here 
for nuthin', eh ?" 

Bonda Key was perchance half a mile in width at its 
widest part, and three miles in length, where we were 
encamped. The thickest growth of trees and shrubbery 
stood at our end, and near the outer side was a long 
pool of water, formed by the sea throwing up a bank of 
sand and leaving this isolated pond. The nearest land 
adjoining this island was at the two ends, the sides being 
bounded without by the open ocean, and within by the 
sheltered bay, which, dotted with islands of different 
sizes, extended up the broad mouth of the river and to 
the mainland. 

Thus much for the geography of our temporary home ; 
as to its geology, it might be said to be, in the words of 
Mike, "sand-some;" its botany was represented by sword- 
grass, palmetto, sea-wrack, some wild plums, and a few 
water-oaks and pines ; by the pond the reeds and joint- 
grass grew very closely, and in the centre we could see a 
close tangle of vegetation, that would defy the best hunter 
in the land to crawl through. As to its conchology, I can 
only say it produced excellent clams, and a kind of conch 
shell, that Scipio manufactured into a sj^ecies of annoyance 
he called a dinner-horn, and which when blown made all 
the dogs on the island set up a prolonged howl. As to its 
zoology, man seemed absent, and every other created 



THE BATTUE ON BONDA KEY. 179 

thing had its representative, particularly those classes 
that preyed on man, which seemed the more voracious 
from being so seldom gratified by visitors. 

I am thus particular as to the peculiarities of this place, 
that my readers may well understand the process of 
hunting which we adopted the morning after our arrival, 
and the success of which I will always remember. It 
was Jackson's idea, and he styled it the battue. On our 
arrival in the evening, the hounds had all been tied to 
prevent them coursing over the island, and the negroes 
had been restricted to a very narrow range in the col- 
lection of firewood and fish, so that nothing should be 
done to disturb the game that might be on the island. 

The next morning, as we came out from our tents with 
the first grey light, the cool wind was still coming in 
from the sea, laden with the salt flavor; the negroes 
were poking together the half-burned brands, and pre- 
paring the breakfast in haste, or rather all the haste a 
negro ever assumes, and I plunged into the sea with the 
happy anticipation of a grand hunt, and all a-glow to 
hear the first cry and ringing shot of our grand battue. 

" Good morning to you. Miss Jackson ; you look hke 
Diana this morning in your canvas jacket and gown." 

" And you like a shipwrecked mariner, with your drip- 
ping locks, and jacket on your arm." 

" Where's Mike ?" 

" Maussa Mike's gone off with he shell on he back, like 
a gopher," said Scipio. 

" There he comes ; he has been around the head." 



180 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

" How are you, Poke ?" 
- " O — ho — lium — oh — ho — heo-o — hum !" yawned the 
Doctor, rubbing his eyes, as he staggered out of the tent. 

" How are you ?" I reiterated. 

" Oh, ho ! — there's one of those dogs named Music, I 
believe. I'd have his name chanojed after to-nig^ht. I 
didn't get a wmk o' sleep." 

" Hulloa, gentlemen, a pleasant day to you," said Jack- 
son, just protruding his head from the canvas. "You 
boys, hurry there with breakfast !" and with this general 
order, the head disappeared. 

"Oh, ho! dear me! Break — ^breakfast — on thy cold, 
grey stone, oh ! oh ! sea — and I would that my tongue 
could utter the thoughts that arise in me." 

" Pete, you boy ! pour some water on the Doctor to 
wake him up !" 

"You, Sam! tie up that Black Bess; she will be clean 
gone presently. Where is Sumpter ?" 

" Maussa Jackson, Pomp say you a-gom' to leff him 
shoot a gun to-day ?" 

" Go along with you !" 

" Yah ! yah ! yah ! I knowed de niggah he !" 

As the noise and hurry progressed, breakfast began 
to smoke on the fire, the boats were launched, and in a 
few minutes everything was ready for the chase, while a 
hearty breakfast of venison and fish was spread before 
us and the sun arose in the woods on the shore, and his 
level beams trailed the smokmg water, and painted the 
tops of the taller island trees with golden tassels. 



THE BAITUE ON BOND A KEY. 181 

The hunt was arranged by Mike as follows : The dogs 
were to be led to the extreme end of the island, not far 
from where we were camped, and all the party was to 
follow, either on foot or in boats. One boat was to keep 
on each side of the island, close enough in shore to shoot 
any game that might take to the beach ; the rest of the 
hunters, with all the negroes, were to follow the dogs, 
and, keeping at equal distances apart, beat down the 
island shouting and thrashing in the bushes, and thus 
drive before them everything that would run. As the 
chase progressed, it would come to the narrower portion 
of the island, and thus the men would come closer to- 
gether just at the time when the game would be most 
anxious to turn back, so that they could form a complete 
barrier, through which nothing could return. 

After all had reached the point appointed for the meet, 
and taken their stations, Mike harangued them, telling 
what should be done. Lou Jackson Avas in one boat, 
with Rosa to paddle ; the Doctor in another, to guard 
the two sides, and all the rest were to follow the hounds. 
Scipio had been sent at starting to the other end of the 
island, in a canoe, to lie close to the nearest shore, to head 
off anything that should attempt to cross to the main. 

"Now remember !" said Poke to Jackson, just as the 
hounds were being loosened. 

"What?" 

"Thirty centuries look down upon you from those 
gum-trees." 

" Shough ! Go ahead all !" shouted Jackson. 



182 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

The hounds were cast off, and with their noses high in 
air coursed into the underbrush, and with yelp and cry 
the boisterous crew of coon-dogs and half-breeds rushed 
in their wake, while the negroes, each armed with a big 
cudgel and a heavy knife, with which to clear the vines, 
dashed off, yelping very much after the manner of their 
dogs, cheering on their particular favorites with endear- 
ing cries, and all were soon scattered out of sight in the 
dense undergrowth that succeeded the sandy ridges 
and level grass of the coast. From time to time, we 
could hear their shouting, and the crashing that was 
caused by their progress, and when within sound, many 
a rough joke and laugh came down the line. 

I was nearest the inner channel, and within sight of 
the beach. Jackson was next to me, then Mike and the 
negroes all beyond. At first we could not see each 
other except at mtervals where the woods opened, but 
as we advanced we came into a less tangled ground, and 
we could maintain a connected vision entirely across 
froni one to another. 

" Thar's deer," said Jackson, as we crossed the fresh 
tracks of one. " And thar's Beauty," continued he ; 
" do you hear her ?" 

"No, I cannot tell one from another; they are all 
yelping, each on a different track." 

A loud burst of voices from the negroes proclaimed 
something started. 

" What's that, Mike ?" 

" Coon," answered Mike. 



THE BATTUE ON BONDA KEY. 183 

" No — thunder ! it's a cat ; see it come." 

Grimalkin, however, did not Hke such a multitude of 
foes as presented themselveSj and turning to the right, 
shot in imder the underbush ahead of us, while two of 
the younger dogs came full cry on her heels. 

" There's a coon — two of them !" I shouted. 

" Out of the frying-pan into the fire I think," said Jack- 
son, as they ran into the same thicket the cat had taken to. 

Here the bushes became so thick that I had to take 
my hunting-knife to cut my way and free my legs from 
the close binding of tenacious green vines that seemed 
stronger than packthread. We could hear the dogs 
ahead of us and on either side yelping and scuddmg 
hither and yon, and I at once saw the advantage of the 
mongrel pack we were using. They wound in and out 
of every corner, and under every fallen leaf where a hare 
could lie, yelping as poor puss started from her form, 
and only following her^ a few steps to pursue their 
researches in another cover. 

Slowly we progressed ahead, and after about two 
hours of labor we had come down one half of the island, 
and had drawn so near together we could see each other. 
On calling down the line we had reported two deer as 
having been seen, and " some coon," with such a strong 
accent on the some, that we Avere inclined to think that 
this particular game was very plentiful. Indeed, Scipio 
was seen with two hanging to his girdle. I could see, 
from time to time. Miss Lou's boat paddled by Rosa, and 
the young lady seated in the bow. 



184 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

" What's that ahead ?" shouted Jackson. 

" Can't say, though it looks black," I replied, as some 
indistinct body rushed out from under some grape-vines, 
shaking down the ripe fruit in showers. 

"Yeow! yeow! — oohow!" chimed in two or three 
dogs in chorus, on some new and fresh scent, and Wag, 
who had been keeping very near me. dashed off to see. 

" There's a buck, look out !'» 

" Bang !" sounded Jackson's gun. 

" Never riz a hair !" called Mike, as the deer crashed 
on. 

" Big buck ! big buck !" called out the negroes 
beyond. 

'Spang!" 
" ' There goes Lou's gun," said Jackson. " What is 
she shooting ? can you see ?" 

" Yes, a young buck." 

" It's getting lively, Jackson." 

" Wait a little, there's game here ! Hear the boys 
sing." 

The lively chant of the negroes sounded in the clear 
air, accompanied by the crashing of theu* sticks : 

Wake 'em up dare ! 

Waugh and a waugh da ! 
Git out possum ! 

Waugh da dey ! 

" Da she goes," called a negro, as something bounded 
out of the bushes. 



THE BATTUE ON BONDA KEY. 185 

"What's that?" 

" Big buck, sah; got horns like a dead tree." 

" There's that cat again !" 

Sure enough, the cat came spitting along, and dashed 
up a tree, sending down the bark in showers on the dogs 
that were close after her. 

" Drap, you hussey !" said Mike, following her zig-zag 
course up the j^ine tree, with his rifle ; and as she paused 
he sent a ball through her head, whizzing her down with 
a whirling motion as though she had been swung down 
by her tail. 

" Git out, you dogs ! Clare away, that's my cat !" he 
shouted, cuffing the dog aside, and taking possession of 
his prize. 

" Kehimck ! Kehunck !" There goes a blue heron, 
fanning the air with measured stroke. See him sail. Ho 
got up so slowly that one of the dogs jumped uj) at his 
long dangling legs. 

" There go three deer altogether." 

"Don't shoot the does, thar's no use," called out 
Mike. 

There was only one buck, "and three shots rang so close 
together we could not tell the report, but the buck fell 
over among his wives, who leaped ahead, sadly fi'ightened. 
Mike cut his throat, and left his cat beside him to keep 
him company. 

" There's that varmint again," shouted Jackson ; " it's 
a panther !" . 

" Whar's a painter ?" asked Mike. 



186 WILD SPORTS IN" THE SOrTH. 

" On ahead ; we've seen him twice." 
I heard the Doctor's voice from the other side of the 
island, and the quick repeated report of his double-bar- 
rel. Then a shot on our left. 

"That's Lou again; push down to the beach there, 
will you ?" 

I came through the young willows that shut out the 
\dew, when I saw Lou gesticulating and pointing ahead, 
at the same time she was loading. I tried to see what it 
was, but could not, on account of the intervening bushes. 
She hurriedly rammed down the wad of shot with which 
she was provided, sowed up in muslin, and taking aim, 
fired again. 

"A wolf! look out — he is turning in the bushes." 
I ran back just in time to see the animal attempting to 
sneak back, when, seeing me, he turned ahead, and ran 
on so quickly I could not shoot, though I saw by his 
track he was wounded. 

At the place we had now reached, the island was not 
more than a third of a mile in width. The trees had 
ceased to grow, and only a few copses of willow were 
found in the hollow between the ridges, and the tall grass 
that lined the pond. "We could see the negroes away 
hither and thither, chasing the swamp raccoons that 
seemed to overrun the island, and striking at the hares 
that dodged hither and thither, and, escaping the men, 
were sure to run directly in the mouths of the dogs. 

Ahead of us we could see the deer coursing over the 
knolls, hard pushed by the dogs, that had separated in 



THE BATTUE ON BOND A KEY. 187 

three or four different packs, and were each hunting on 
their own hook. ^ 

" There's Yowler and Music. Here they come — they 
are after the wolf. Hi, dogs ! hi, dogs !" shouted Jackson, 
running to a knoll where he could overlook the chase. 

The negroes yelled as they caught sight of the game, 
and the wolf availing himself of every copse and hollow, 
ran on, hard pushed by the dogs, and dodging on every 
side to avoid his numerous foes. Whenever he entered 
a thicket he remained there until the dogs were about 
entering the other side ; then he dashed away with an 
angry snap of his jaws that sounded like the ring of 
metal. As he approached the further shore, the Doctor 
saluted him with a double shot that stung him badly. 
He passed do^n the line of negroes, but their shouting 
and dancing deterred him from attempting to break their 
array. 

"Now, Mike!" 

" "No no, it is your turn ; I've had a cat." 

"Take him, Charlie!" 

I levelled my rifle, and as he ran I fired. At the 
report he rolled over and over like a ball. 

" Well done !" shouted Lou Jackson. 

I thought him quite dead, but when the dogs came up 
where he fell, he turned around on his haunches and 
snapped at his pursuers with such effect that the fore- 
most lost a piece from his shoulder as broad as my palm, 
leaving a ghastly wound. The dog turned away, yelling 
with pain. Wag, who was always in every scrape. 



188 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

received another nip, not quite so bad, but sufficient to 
put Mm on the sick list for the rest of the day, and doubt- 
less some of the other dogs would have been hurt, had 
not Mike fired and killed the wounded animal as the 
hounds came crowding up. 

"Cat! cat!" "Yow! yow!" "Hit um a dip!" 
" Ough ! ough !" were the sounds that came on the right, 
as a big cat broke away down the beach. The Doctor was 
just landing fi'om his boat, and had a fair chance, as the 
animal was close by. The shot wounded the furious beast, 
so that it became completely confused, and being hard 
pressed by the dogs, it took refuge in the only trwik it 
could see, which happened to be the high curve of the 
Doctor's cypress canoe, just landing end on to the beach. 
In rushed the dogs after the animal, crowding the boat, 
knocking about the paddles, and forcing the Doctor up 
on the thwarts. The fierce animal fought with despera- 
tion against the crowd of pursuers, thrashing around the 
Doctor's legs, and tilting the boat from one side to 
the other, till it finally upset, and dogs, and oars, cat, 
and hunter, were all thrown into the water together. It 
only needed a moment of open field, and the dogs, smart- 
ing with their scratches, tore the cat almost in pieces, 
and left the cat-skin, as one of the boys remarked who 
had run down to help the Doctor, " 'bout chawed up." 

Jackson and I did not like to leave our places to help 
in the fray, though we assisted all we could by laughiug, 
and Miss Jackson called out, after vainly trying to peer 
over the land, to know what the matter was. 



THE BATTUE ON BONDA KEY. 189 

I explained how the Doctor had presided over the 
fight. 

" The Colossus of Rhodes!" she answered back. 

"Poke! I say, Poke! Miss Jackson says you stood 
like the Colossus of Rhodes." 

" I won't stand for a Colossus again," he replied, shov- 
ing off his boat, and resuming his paddle ; " that misera- 
ble cat has scratched my legs bare !" 

As our line advanced we could see the end of the 
island that ran out in a long narrow bar. Hundreds of 
gulls and black-headed terns, with snow-white bodies, 
disturbed from the sands, were ca^\ing over us, and 
curlews and plover wheeled in circles, uttering their 
plaintive cries. Crowds of merganser ducks that were 
sitting on the shingle, basking in the sun, rushed out to 
sea, piling up the water in front of them, and small birds 
took flight to the neighboring islands, or flew high in the 
air to regain their accustomed haunts in the thickets. 
Like as some great seine that has inclosed a broad bay, 
at last contracts its semi-cii'cle toward the beach, expos- 
ing to the light the flashing fishes that in vain attempt 
to leap its cords, while the gulls and fish-hawks wait 
above, so our line closed up, the prey rushed hither and 
thither, the black heads of the negroes above the grass, 
like the floats on the net, bobbed up and down, and with 
shout and cry, the terrified animals made their last leaps 
and tricks for their lives. 

The first thing that broke our line was a doe, with a 
fawn nearly grown. The doe was let past, but one of 



190 c-yriLD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

the negroes caiigTit the fawn as it attempted to run by, 
and with a blow of his knife across the back of its neck 
felled it to the ground, before a voice could be raised to 
stop him. Then a doe was pulled down by the hounds, 
and a dozen dogs piled up over it, very brave when its 
resistance was overcome. 

*' There go two deer to the water ; see the boats pull 
after them — the Doctor, and Lou, and Scipio in his 
canoe." 

"Whoop! see the turkeys — I'll have a gobbler!" I 
said, firing at their leader, who spread out his wings and 
settled down into the grass, while the hens scattered in 
every direction, some taking wing and flying off to the 
main land. 

"Thar'sabear!" 

"Where?" 

" In those thorn bushes." 

" I don't see him." 

At this moment, Scipio, who had been paddling after 
the deer, turned his canoe landward, shouting " A bear ! 
A bear !" and the dogs, that had been scattered about in 
the underbrush, made a fresh clamor, and rushed into 
the thorn trees, from whence they came howling back, 
some of them with blood running from their shoulders. 

"Who saw it?" 

"I eaw it," said the Doctor, hurrying in from his 
canoe at the first intimation of a bear, as did both of the 
other boats, letting the deer escape ; " I know it was a 
bear." 



THE BATTUE ON BONDA KEY. 191 

" Fire your gun at him." 

Lem was lying down flat on his face, trying to peep 
under the bushes, when the Doctor, at the suggestion, 
fired into the thicket. At the report of his gun, out 
rushed the animal, stung, probably, by the shot. So 
quick was his charge, that Lem did not have time to get 
out of the way, and was run over by the brute, as dash- 
ing right through the midst of us, he hied away for the 
woods from which we had just come. There were too 
many crowded around, when he first came forth, to make 
it at all safe to shoot, and the moment he- gained a little 
distance, his round stern presented a target as little vul- 
nerable as the rump of a rhinoceros, as he ran with a 
lumbering gait, but with great speed, for his old haunts. 
But the hounds were soon after him, and as they came 
up they ran alongside, snapping at him without stopping 
him ; then the smaller dogs came to their assistance, and 
seizuig him behind, forced him to bay, which he did by 
standing on his hind legs, and making sweeps with his 
front paws at his pursuers. It was an amusing sight to 
see the dogs run, but still more so to see the negroes 
madly excited about the danger of their favorite curs, 
and yet cheering them on with cries, and grotesque 
denunciations, and warnings. 

" Now for it ! Whose shot is it ?" 

" Let the Doctor try." 

" I ain't loaded ; wait a minute." 

" Ho ! ho ! that's a good one ! Jackson, shoot." 

Without a word of parley, Jackson fired, and struck 



192 WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 

the mark, as we could see, for tlie animal flinched, 
and attempted to run, but there were too many dogs, 
and they brought him to bay again after running a dozen 
yards. I fired, and so did Mike, both together. The 
huge brute turned the way we stood, his eye gleamed 
a fierce glance of revenge, his jaw fell open, showing his 
long rows of white teeth, and then he sunk down a life- 
less lump amid the ring of dogs. 

" That air is rael murder !" said Mike. 

As the heat of the chase subsided in my veins, I felt as 
if Mike's remark was true. 

" Four hunters, twelve men, and forty dogs, against 
one bear !" called out Lou Jackson, who had been a 
spectator of the chase from her boar. 

"I plead guilty to tyi-annical oppression," said the 
Doctor ; •' deal gently with me." 

"I fine you all one bear's skin, to be paid into the 
Court," she replied. 

" Oh ! that will make you a sharer of the profits." 

Bruin was dragged down to the beach, under the 
shade of a tree, and the men were sent back for the rest 
of the game that lay scattered about the route of our 
chase wherever they had fallen. On putting them 
altogether in a row, it was counted, as follows : one bear, 
one wolf, two wildcats, four deer, one wild turkey, one 
sand-hill crane, seven raccoons, and hares without 
number. 

"Not a bad day's sport!" ejaculated the Doctor, 
standing in his favorite attitude with his feet wide apart, 



THE BATTUE ON BONDA KEY. 193 

and his hands in the side pockets of his shooting- 
jacket. 

*' How many did you shoot, Poke ?" 

" I think I shot all of them, for I fired at everything, 
only may be I did not kill ; but I contend the sport is as 
good if you get the shots." 

" What did you kill at your first shot, Lou ?" inquu-ed 
Jackson. 

" That young buck. Don't you see my buckshot ? they 
are scattered over a hand's breath of distance." 

" I fired at some ducks, getting up out of the pond," 
said the Doctor. 

" What kind of ducks ?" 

" There's one of them," he replied, tugging at a mal- 
lard drake he had stowed in his pocket. 

" Ha ! I am glad to see that ; he is one of the first of 
the winter migration. Wait for the big flights, and we 
will see sport. Come, boys, off with that wolf's skin, we 
don't want his carcase at the camp, and so mth the bear, 
too, I reckon." 

But the negroes pleaded for the bear's meat, and it 
was concluded to carry him to camp. So the boats were 
pulled up opposite the place where the game was Ij'mg, 
and while a couple of the negi'oes were skinning the gaunt- 
looking brute that I had so successfully disabled, the rest 
carefully loaded the two canoes with the game, and when 
the wolf was disrobed, two negroes taking their places in 
the stern of each boat, gaily started on their return. We 
all followed the canoes, taking the line of the beach, laugh- 

9 



194 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

ing at the different accounts of the day's adventures, and 
the droll remarks of the men, who were in the greatest 
glee at the success of the hunt. The shore birds were 
running before us, or wheeling over our heads, and Lou 
Jackson was telling their names, and how their coming 
marked the progress of the year. The sands were hard 
and level, just rippled by the sea. The day was waning 
in that clearness of atmosphere and stillness of decay 
that marks the early fall, ere a leaf has dried enough 
to rustle. Mike's ugly face seemed to draw a reflec- 
tion from the season; Poke's laugh was as musical 
as the waters, and, wearied with the day's exertion, I 
scarcely knew how pleasantly the moments were falling, 
until now, when looking them over through the telescope 
of years. 



THF HISTOKY OF AN OLD FRIEND. 195 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE HISTOKY OF AN OLD FRIEND. 

" The poor make no new friends, 
But they love the better far 
The few their Father sends." 

The night had drawn its curtains when we reached 
our bivouac, but the fire made it day betAveen the two 
white tents, where our supper was spread, and where, 
when supper was done, we stretched ourselves in dreamy- 
mood, Avatching the embers glow and listening to the 
tale go round. It was my turn to tell a story, but being 
of a philosophical frame of mind I narrated a history, and 
being of a modest nature was about to preface it with a 
few deprecatory remarks when one of my auditors rudely 
cut me short by saying : 

" Bang away ; never mind the priming." 

And the following was the tale I told. It is the history 
of one of my old friends : 

There are some persons in this world of ours that are 
very incorrectly estimated. They are not the talking 
people that boast themselves into our notice, nor the 
silent people that, with an air of abstract profundity, im- 
press us with their powers, while they repress all of ours. 



196 WILD SPORTS EST THE SOUTH, 

They are not the showy people, whose dress and equi- 
page, house, Avife, watering-place, and tight boots, dazzle 
us, nor the men in great places in the nation, nor the 
very pious men. They, perchance, are very plain men, 
and don't obtrude. They have not many friends. They 
are composed in manner, and sparse and simple in their 
words. If you don't know them you wull not hear any- 
thing very bad of them, unless some very fashionable 
person says it in her manner rather than her words, when 
alluding to them. If you do know them, and you can't 
know them in a day, you will like them forever. If it 
is a woman, her gentle presence has filled the house for 
months, providing and directing so softly it was never 
known. She has read much, but it was in her chamber ; 
she has opinions stronger than any partisan, but she 
never expresses them in conversation, only in their exer- 
cise. Her quiet eye is on you, but you don't perceive it, 
and she knows you before you thought enough of her to 
notice her, and yet, for aU that forgotten presence, when 
the great ills come and sorrow extinguishes the light 
in the house, where does the household so surely tm-n as 
to her counsel and her consolation ? If it is a man, his 
coming and going and long absences were scarcely noted, 
except by those who leaned on him. In his mind are 
stored up years of studies and observation, and in his 
breast there is a spring of love for simple things and 
honest ways, and a hidden honor that makes him a rich 
man, though often with scarcely a dollar to spend. 
Everybody says he must be rich, for he has everything 



THE HISTORY OF AN OLD FRIEND. 197 

he wants, though he only wants what is within his reach. 
Should you get to know him well, you will find in some 
direction or other his mind has gone out in a strong 
taste, and in it he so excels, that his companionship is a 
great instruction — a happy, hopeful story, read at the 
evening time, mayhap tinted mth fancies, and all aglow 
with legends, and self-experiences of so rare a kind, you 
wondered you did not know him before. 

Such characters are sometimes found in society, in the 
full sweep of restless, flattering, envious fashion, just 
endured, half forgotten, sometimes in literary life, some- 
times toiling in some hard handicraft, where the gains 
they make are applied to those they love. Sometimes in 
the wood, or by the sea-side village. 

The friend of whom I am about to speak^ and who 
belongs to this class, is oftenest seen in rural districts, or 
by lakes, or the slow-moving streams of the woods. I 
deem it but my duty, for many a lesson taught by him 
and hours of quiet companionship, to speak in his behalf 
a kindly word, and save him and his family, as far as in 
me lies, from that unmerited neglect which seems to be 
the fate of the humble and the unobtrusive. 

The friend to whom I allude is the Muskrat. Let no 
one smile at the name, 

" Or mock the short and simple annals of the poor." 

His coat may not be of as many colors as a courtier's, 
but it covers a kindlier heart ; his house may not be of 
as stately proportions as a banker's, but it shelters a more 



198 WILD SPORTS LN" THE SOUTH. 

tranquil soul. Writers may have slighted him, school' 
boys may have pelted him, poets left his name unsung, 
and the uncouth boor may have sought to deride him by 
naming him Musquash, and other opprobrious titles ; but 
this is not the first time in the annals of the world a 
similar fate has overtaken modest worth. Pass by their 
crude opmions, and let us visit my mentor friend. 

Down by many a softly-purling brook, whose sinuosi- 
ties have unearthed the gnarled roots of oaks and 
hickories, and where the school-boy hastes from tasks to 
find a shady nooning, the Muskrat builds his nest. His 
selection of a home shows his cultivated taste, and gives 
a lesson to the more unobservant rustic. By the cloudy 
water that lies in the canals, that lead beneath the oaks, 
you may know his retreat. There he rests, while the 
day is warm, in the quiet enjoyment of his domestic 
pleasures, safe from pursuit in the winding galleries of 
his earthen fortress, but, 

" When the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye at hame, 
And a' the world to sleep are gane," 

when the moonshine falls on bridge and reeds, and 
twinkUng stars are floating on the water, then this gentle 
friend comes forth to view. You see him, with his keen 
eye and grave countenance, draw himself upon a root, 
and with careful fingers arrange his dress and wash his 
face. By his side sits a little picture of his sire— a tiny 
counterpart, that is destined one day to take his place 
among the reeds and by the bridge, and rear the mimic 



THE HISTORY OF AN OLD FEIEND. 199 

dome upon the lake. After the parent has completed 
his toilet he gives one or two caressing touches to that 
of his young heir. A moment more they sit, eyeing the 
bubbles or floating nuts descending the stream, or watch- 
ing, their faces reflected in the moonUght waters. Who 
can say that they do not appreciate the beauty of the 
night, or the soft, murmuring music of the woods, or the 
fragrance of the air, laden with the odor of calamus buds 
and the breath of the birch and sassafras ? Presently, 
diving down together, they disappear under the water, 
fi-om whence, after a moment, they reappear, each with 
several muscles clasped to his breast by his fore paws, 
and, resuming then- seats on the roots, they eat their 
food "v^ith the readiness of squirrels, casting the shells 
down fit their feet, which fall on the pile of pearly bivalves 
that af.lorn the entrance to their home. Another pause 
follow3, while they look uj) and down the brook. 

Aro they not comely in their dark-brown coat and 
black feet? Does not their soft hair, that sheds the 
water, and the strong flat tail, that steers their course, 
or flattenOtheir masonry-work, befit well their pursuits ? 
Do not their manners well become their place ? Is it 
not true they are free from cares and inordinate greed — 
that they know their simple duties and enjoy them ? 

You say they are idle ? Wait till you have seen their 
whole life. 

Presently the father swims off on the water and 
across the brook. We may not see him go, for only his 
head is above the surface, and his tail floats hke a 



WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH 

rudder. By the wake in the water, we may tell his 
course, long after his round head is lost to view, and his 
child is following him close behind. They are bound for 
the low reeds on the other shore. There the calamus 
lifts its waving wands and spicy buds, while beyond the 
waterpad's broad leaf floats on the surfoce, and their white 
and yellow lilies stud the waters, and from the sandy 
edge of the channel the osier's round tapering wand, 
the bayonet flags and the sedge grass, appear above the 
tide and point the way the current flows. This is the 
playground of our friend. You may see him here when 
the moon is full, pulling the roots of the lilies, or the 
long eel-grass that is growing beneath. You can hear 
his quick splash and dive, and by the rattle of the cat- 
tails and the shaking out of their floss you know he is 
chasing ofl* the wild duck's brood that mtrude on his 
gardens. On the shore his paths are running hither and 
thither, wherever a better grass can be found, or the 
seeds of grains that have come down with the freshets 
have taken root, and on these grounds, which he is often 
compelled to cross, a deep hole is dug down to^e water, 
and connects with the brook, in which he mil take 
refuge if disturbed. At length, when the morning star 
shines dead, and the cock's loud clarion comes from the 
farm, the provident botanist bears away for his home, 
Avith his arms fall of grass and roots to lay up for a day 
of need. 

It often occurs that my friend has selected for his resi- 
dence, being allured by the wild beauty of the scene, 



THE HISTORY OF AN OLD FKIEND. 201 

some lake whose shores do not present suitable accom- 
modations for shelter. Either they are so rocky as not 
to be pierced, or they are so low as to be liable to be 
submerged with the spring rains. No more discrimin- 
ating judge of the security of such shores can be found 
than my friend. No scenery fitness mil tempt him. If 
there is any liability of danger on shore he goes out to 
the centre of the lake, or to a -point in the lake from 
which he can readily obtain good grass, and then he 
builds himself a house. Sometimes he takes the end of 
a half-submerged log as a proper foundation. At other 
times the bottom of the pond, and yet again he will take 
a mass of weeds as an anchor, and construct a house that 
is to last for years on this slight support. His bricks are 
eel-grass and twigs ; his mortar is mud and clay ; he is 
his o^Ti architect, laborer, builder, contractor and 
upholsterer. Gradually the house progresses, without 
shaped like a dome, and within divided into many cham- 
bers. The door is beneath the waters, and so nothing 
but a diver can enter it, and being built on the open 
water, an^ at a distance from shore, nothing will attack 
it from above. It is formed and fashioned with a preci- 
sion that no science could excel. In and out is the strong 
eel-grass woven, and the clay that covers the walls is 
patted down with many a sounding thwack from his 
broad tail until it is as smooth as a plaster wall. At 
length winter comes and bridges the lake, and makes an 
easy access to the house for the wolf and the bear. How 
is the Muskrat to save himself from then* snuffing noso 

9* 



303 WILD SPORTS IN" THE SOUTH. 

and Btrono: claws? The careful student of nature lies all 
the freezing night by the side of his house, and ever 
and anon with his tail spatters the water over the dome, 
until finally the house is massed in ice so thick that none 
but the summer can break it. And within, in his goodly 
chamber, Hned with the river grass, the plumage of 
ducks, and the soft silk of the silkweed, my friend lies 
with his wife, safe from enemies, from want, and from 
cold, and reads me a lesson of skill and providence I 
have not yet followed. 

In some lakes I have seen as many as thirty of these 
little domes rising about three feet from the water, and 
resembling an Indian village. When the nights are still 
in autumn, the inhabitants of this modern Venice will be 
found lying about on the lake, chasing each other 
around the houses, or playing tag on the open water. 
They lie on the surface, with their tails slightly arched, 
which is a sign of watchfulness, and by a quick motion 
will disappear so suddenly that even the hunter's shot is 
ineffectual to stop them. One old beadle will now and 
then be seen mounting one of the houses, and with 
an august dignity survey the surrounding shores, and 
when well satisfied, will dive down so softly as not to 
leave a ripple ; but if, perchance, he should see some 
cause of alarm, he leaps back with an angry plash, and 
the whole tribe disappear in an instant. Should you be 
tempted to fire a gun at some impudent member of the 
colony, before the bright flash had faded along the shore, 
every one will have disappeared from view. You may 



THE HISTORY OF AN OLD FEIEND. 203 

wait hours for another shot, and though the pond is full 
of them, you will never see one. Once in a while an old 
sentinel will float to the surface, and the point of his 
nose, about the size of a chesnut, will be exposed while 
he breathes and takes a view, and after a moment of 
watchfalness, it will be so quietly withdrawn that even 
if you see it you will not suspect it to be one of your 
prey. 

A long time ago — I remember the woods and waters 
were very bright in color then, for I was. a boy — there 
lived one bachelor Muskrat in a small pond not far 
from my home. After watching him some evenings, I 
set a trap to catch him, baited with a rosy Spitzenberg. 
Early in the morning I was at the pond ; the trap was 
sprung, and peering into it through a small hole bored 
in the end, I saw crouched in the corner an animal with 
long whiskers and bright eyes, that appeared to my 
happy vision as big as a polar bear, but by the musky 
smell I knew it was my friend the Muskrat. If the 
woods and waters were bright the night before, they 
glowed with fire now, and the sun rose in the east. I 
carried my prize home in the trap, and tying a string to 
his leg, after getting somewhat bitten in the operation, 
secured him in the shed, and tried to tame him, but 
quite unsuccessfully. He refused to eat apples or cake, 
though always ready for a piece of my finger. When I 
could watch my captive no longer, I went to bed to 
dream of him, while he, cutting the string with his sharp 
incisors, gnawed a hole in the doof of the shed, and made 



204 WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

his escape. I followed his track the next day in the 
light snow that lay on the ground, and it led in a straight 
line to the pond from whence I came. I set my trap 
a<T^aiu, but though I tempted him with the rosiest of 
api^les, he never was induced to enter. At this time the 
pond in which he resided froze over, and gave me an 
opportunity of getting out to the centre, where he had 
built for himself a dome as classically correct as the Pan- 
theon. I confided my secret to a comrade, and we con- 
sulted an old work of the Northwest Fur Trade, and 
there learned the Indian manner of catching these ani- 
mals. We accordingly provided ourselves with a small 
net, and going do^m to the pond with a pickaxe, when 
school ^vas out, we commenced a regular siege. First we 
cut four holes in the ice, at opposite sides of, and close by 
the house ; then with bent sticks I pushed the corners of 
the net through the holes, and my comrade fastened 
them at the four corners, thus stretching the net beneath 
the house in such a manner as to prevent the animal 
diving down in the water. By the time this advance 
had been effected it began to grow dark, so I hastily 
with my pickaxe cut a hole in the top of the house and 
looked in. There was nothing there but the materials 
for a warm bed, that had been occupied not long since.- 
I pulled away the partition that divided the interior, but 
could see nothing. I put my hand in to feel, and was 
rewarded with a gripe from an admu'able set of incisors 
that have left their unpress on my hand to this day, and 
pulling out my arm, I*pulled out my captive of the night 



THE HISTOEY OF AN OLD FEIEND. 205 

before, who immediately, amid the laughter of my 
misymi3athizing friend, scampered to the shore, where 
the ice had left an open margin of water, and dived 
beyond pursuit. 

This bold burglary on our part evidently caused much 
alarm and uncertainty in the mind of the proprietor of 
the house. For the next morning, when I returned with 
an eel-spear, intent on warlike deeds, I found that, after 
putting a few armMs of mud on the broken dome, his 
ratship had changed his mind, and, leavmg the house 
altogether, had made his exodus to a safer land, under 
the waters of a neighboring stream, to which I followed 
his trail, and where I trust he still lives, undisturbed by 
marauding boys. 

The Muskrat is no noisy roisterer. His ways are 
gentleness, and he only frequents the most placid scenes. 
He abhors the noisy rapids of the river, the clank of the 
wheel, or the fashionable highway, but where the stream 
has the softest tone, where the birch droops lowest, 
where the leaves in autumn lay in yellow and crimson 
wreaths upon the eddy, and the fish-hawk from his emi- 
nence can scarcely see the perch that turns his golden 
bars to the sunlight, so hid in foliage moves the water, 
there my friend finds a favorite bank, and may be seen, 
even in the day-time, plying his busy feet, or mounting 
some stone or slanting root to view the disrobing year. 

To this unfrequented place, when troubled by the cares 
that oppress, or those greater cares that may oppress, I 
often come to hold counsel Tvith my friend. I hear the 



206 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

"waters croon, the leaves whisper, the wood-thrush warble 
his low chant, and I forget to listen to that inner voice 
complaining. I see the bold plunge of the kingfisher div- 
ing for his prey ; bright eyes are peering at me from bush 
and hole, cautiously at first, famiharly afterward; the 
leafy vault above me dazzles the eye with a confused 
motion of waning, glimmering brightness, and catches of 
sunshine come and go athwart the foam and on the 
flowers, and I do not see the cold, hard faces that were 
staring at me but now. I drink the water, I smell the 
odor of the moss, I lean my face against the cool beech 
trunk ; every sense is drinking in the religion of nature, 
and the soul, forgetting itself, goes w^p in the million- 
colored, million-formed works of creation, through their 
instincts, their changes, and their birth, to that pervad- 
ing essence that made them all and guides them all, and 
placed me among them all — a very little thing in this 
wonderful place. And then comes forth the Muskrat ; 
he swims out to an apple you had tossed in the stream, 
and, smelling it an instant, takes it in his mouth, and 
bears it away to yonder stone. He sees you now; a 
moment's pause ; he is watching you ; perchance he sees 
that softening heart that has come over you with the 
teachings of the hour, and therefore he does not fear 
you. He goes on munching his apple, while his whiskers 
move up and down with every movement of his grave 
cheek. His keen eyes wink with satisfaction. When he 
has finished his meal he passes his hand over his face, and 
dresses his robe a moment. He looks up the stream and 



THE HISTORY OF AN OLD FRIEND. 207 

down, but there is nothing there save a flock of wood- 
duck, halting for a day on their southern migration. He 
looks at you ; do you see his contentment, his happy face, 
his honest ways — just enough of labor to provide him a 
home — just enough of leisure to learn the world his God 
has made ? He moves into the water, and, bowing low 
his head to his now cheerful friend, he bids the day and 
you good night. 

When I had finished my history, I looked around upon 
my auditors, and found that, with the exception of Lou 
Jackson, they were all asleep. 



WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE DKOWNED LANDS. 

*' Seekest thou the plashy brink 

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 
Or where rocking billows rise and sink 

On the chafed ocean's side? 
****** 

'' And soon thy toil shall end, 

Soon Shalt thou find a summer home and rest, 

And scream among thy fellows — reeds shall bend 

Soon o'er thy sheltered nest." 

Bryant. 

Foe some time past, on the main land, we had been 
noticing the signs of the departing year, and at Bonda 
Key these indications became more marked and numer- 
ous. The air had not lost its balsam or the leaf its color, 
yet there were other shadows on nature's dial slighter in 
appearance, but as true in reahty. The ear missed the 
whir in the evening air of those summer insects, whose 
short hves had already terminated. The eye saw a clear- 
ness in the atmosphere that brought objects several miles 
distant apparently near at hand, and sometimes elevated 
them about the horizon. Some birds that wore in sum- 
mer the Uvery of the rainbow had apparelled themselves 



THE DEOWNED LANDS. 

in plainer garments, and from day to day new arrivals 
among migratory tribes of the air would recall the mind 
to those northern hills where the jagged pitfe and 
Uchened rock were already grey with the first flurry of 
snow. We were all standing one morning at the " creak 
o' day," on the island, watching the first effects of the 
sun before its rising, and noting the little indications of 
the progress nature had made during the night. Thus 
travellers at sea will come forth early in the morning, and 
for a few minutes scan the ocean and the ship, and note 
the bfvirings and the winds before they turn to the regu- 
lar thoughts and occupations of the day. 

" See those ducks coming ?" said Jackson. 

"Where?" 

" Close by the main land, low down." 

" Yes ! they are coming this way, too.**' 

" Teal," said Mike. 

" How do you know that, Mike, have you seen that 
flock before ?" asked the Doctor. 

" By their fiyin' ; you couldn't throAV a picayune 
edge"«ase through the flock." 

The compact body of birds that seemed when first in 
view a fleck on the red sky, gradually extended in size 
until they swept high over our heads, with a sound like 
a strong wmd in a pine wood, keeping well toward the 
outer side of the island. 

" Jist think of them air critters bein' hatched among 
the icebergs !" 

" But think of their all going back again next spring 



210 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

to the very spot they were born on," replied Miss Jack- 
son. 

" I trust they all won't get the chance," said the Doc- 
tor, looking the way they went with covetous eyes. 

"Wall, that's easy enough done with the chance 
they've got, stuck up higher en a meetin' house, a pros- 
pectin' over the country ; they'd be booby birds to for- 
git their own trail. The rub was to 'eve done it the fust 
time, when it was all strange like." 

" They are always piloted by some old bird that has 
been here before, I think," said Miss Jackson. 

" How do you know that. Miss Wiseacre ?" 

" By seemg the flock come straight for some favorite 
feeding-ground, where they will always alight at nearly 
the same tune every year. Now had there been no old 
bird piloting them, they would have alit in open water 
and found the feeding ground subsequently. 

" I shot in a flock ones't in the spring-time and winged 
a young black duck," said Mike, pushing up his cap from 
his face and spreading his arms out on the muzzle of his 
rifle. " I tuck the thing hum and penned it up with the 
tame ducks, and so I kept it all summer. When fall 
cum the diver ducks kim fust, and then a purty considera- 
ble shoAV of teal, but he didn't scrape his foot to them or 
say one word. But airly one mornin' I heerd that duck 
sittin' down by the bayou, quackin' away as ef he had 
the pip in his gizzard ; (there comes a row o' black ducks 
now.) Wall, I couldn't see what 'twas that bothered 
him. I looked all around ; et was comin' on mornin' 



THE DROWNED LANDS. 211 

like, and things out was quiet, and every minit or so he'd 
set up on end, and stickin' his bill up hke a musket would 
quack three or four times. As I looked, I seen a tearin' 
big flock of black ducks cum from the north, high up ; 
they bore around when they got over the cabin, and pre- 
sently landed down by the side of the wounded duck, 
and sich a goin' on and duckiu' of heads and gabbhn' 
you never heered in all your born days. It was all as 
plain as a bear's track. The wounded duck was waitin' 
for its friends ; it knowed jist when it was time fur 'em 
to come to the very minit, and sot out there to stop 
them." 

" And I presume the noises they made were mutual 
inquiries after friends and the compliments of the sea- 
son," said the Doctor. 

" Asking if there had been much ice in Baffin's Bay 
the past year," suggested Lou Jackson. 

" There comes another flock," said Jackson, pointing 
to the horizon. ^ - 

" There's a grist of 'em," said Mike. 

" See how they swerve one way or another ! Look 
how fast they grow in size ! There must be ten thousand 
in that flock ! All night they have been travelling and 
yet not weary !" exclaimed Miss Jackson as the flock 
came pressing on in a hugh irregular shadow, soughing 
hke the wind, and keeping straight south. 

" Oh, you beauties !" ejaculated the Doctor, looking up 
at the passing mass of beautiful intelligent life overhead, 
with his mouth wide open and his body gradually lean- 



212 WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 

ing back to permit him to see as they passed, until his 
round little figure nearly lost its balance. 

" Thou shall not covet, Doctor." 

" Mike, can we get some of them ?" 

" Reckon." 

"I think there are a good many on the Drowned 
Lands," said Jackson ; " they have been coming on 
pretty thick, lately." 

" Then let us try them. I don't think the Doctor will 
look earthward again, unless it is to shoot ducks." 

A laugh followed, and the party being of one accord, 
it was arranged that we should spend the day in the 
marshes, takuig a supply of food to last till night. So we 
walked back to camp. Miss Jackson and the Doctor 
chatting away about some theory of the Doctor's upon 
the cause of the variation of the plumage of birds, which, 
like most theories, was all wrong. The moment our 
intentions for the day were announced, the camp was in 
a hurry; the idlers bestirred themselves with double 
zeal ; guns wqyg examined ; boats made ready ; ammu- 
nition bags, that had not been used in a year, were over- 
hauled and filled ; and at length, when the sun arose, 
our breakfast was ended, and four boats were all equipped 
and manned mth two negroes each, ready for the sports- 
men. The boats were all dug-out canoes, made by the 
negroes from cypress logs, but their graceful shape and 
high sharp bow and stern made them resemble the 
Indian bark canoe, or the Canadian pirogue. Mike had 
his neatly arranged, and a beautifully tanned deer-skin 



THE DROWNED LANDS. 213 

was spread in the stem. The negroes, with their sinewy 
arms and hairy breasts bare, sat at the oars ; they were 
the handsomest negroes on the Jackson place, but would 
generally run away to the woods when their master was 
off; so to obtain some use out of them they were always 
taken along on the marooning excursions. The boats 
lay with theii* stems on the rocks, waiting for Miss Jack- 
son. Her father took his seat and pushed off, calling out 
as he went — 

" Come, Lou, hurry up. Who will you ride with ?" 

She stepped down to the water's edge and into the 
Doctor's boat. Push off! Away they go, moving on 
the water like shadows, so little ripple do they leave 
behind. The shore recedes, the camp-fire smoke lessens ; 
Rose can just be seen by the beach with her hands on 
her hips, watching the lessening fleet ; the hounds' com- 
plainings come fainter and fainter ; islands are passed ; 
new vistas open to the eye with tropical vegetation ; 
gaudy birds on the sandy points ; low swathing mist in 
patches on the water, and no wind to drift it away. 
How luxuriantly calm ! The land seems all afloat ! 

Jackson was in the lead, and we all followed in a line 
after him. Presently Mike's boat shoots ahead, a feather 
of spray at its prow, and the sweat guttering on the fore- 
heads of the oarsmen. Yowler's head was lying over 
the edge of the canoe. Mike had a paddle in his hand, 
steering, and I saw the deer-skin that decorated the seat 
had been left behind. 

" Where away ?" called out Jackson, resting on his 



214 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

oars, as we rounded a point where numerous openings 
and bays presented to view, and the boats glided to- 
gether. 

"Any way is beautiful enough," answered the Doctor, 
in the highest tone of enjoyment, chanting away 
snatches of songs, and Lou Jackson joining the chorus. 

" Hi, you Scip, you pull a baby oar." 

" Git out a de way dat air clam-boat 1" 

" Row brothers row, 
The stream runs fast." 

" That song isn't true in fact or music. Doctor." 
" There goes Mike ; he will show us the way." 
" The old rat, he has stolen the march ! Give way, boys ! 
All together !" and the boats filing ofl' followed in the 
wake of Mike, who was making for a level shore about 
two miles ahead, where the bushes grew so dense you 
could scarcely see the land. As we approached, we 
could see no ]3assage beyond, and even Mike seemed 
uncertain, for he steered along the beach a hundred 
yards distant, examining carefully, the bushes that grew 
close to the water, colored with red hawberries, and 
spiked with cactus of several varieties. After sku'ting 
the shore in this manner for several hundred yards, the 
prow of the hunter's canoe was turned shoreward ; ours 
followed the leader. The boatmen bent to their work 
and the boats flew. 

" Trail yer oars !" called out Mike. 

The negroes threw their oars from the rowlocks, let)' 



THE DKOWNED LANDS. 215 

ting them float by the side of the boat. Mike's canoe 
dashed into the bushes and disappeared. Ours followed 
one after the other, and when we lifted our heads from 
the crouching position we were compelled to assume, the 
boats all lay floating together on a large lake completely 
land-locked, and cluttered up with reedy islands and 
bogs of coarse grass, with here and there an osier nod- 
ding among lily pads or floating scum. 

With the first exclamation of delight from the negroes 
there was a rush in the water at one side, and twenty 
wood-ducks, that had been under the edge of the bushes, 
took wing so near us we could see their scarlet eyes and 
hear their piping cry; at the same instant came the 
pleasant and long remembered quack ! quack ! quack ! of 
the black duck, as a dozen of these clergy of the marshes 
beat upward from the grass at our unexpected coming. 

I fired at one of the wood-ducks, and so did the Doc- 
tor. Jackson banged away at the others ; but as usual 
when in a hurry, there was not a bird killed, though a 
dozen or more arose from neighboring shelters at the 
cannonade, and after one or two circuits settled down in 
the grass beyond. 

"Oh, Doctor, how could you miss that beautiful 
drake ! I will shoot the next one myself," said Miss 
Jackson. 

"Yon see," replied the Doctor, rather humbly, "they 
were too near when I first fired." 

" And when you next fired, they were too far away," 
said Miss Jackson. 



216 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

" Tbu ^need not say anything," said the Doctor, 
" Why didn't you kill some of those black ducks ?" 

" Gun hung fire." 

*' Pooh ! what nonsense !" 

" Come, no recriminations, load up I" 

" How shall we shoot ?" 

"Each boat is to paddle its o^\ti way through the 
reeds, and shoot what rises, and so we will get a good 
many passing shots overhead. That's so, isn't it, Mike ?" 

" I reckon." 

" How will we come together again ?" 

" Thar's an island clare up to the eend of this water, 
and it's got one cabbage-tree on it, I reether think the 
biggest cabbage-tree north of Tampa Bay. We might 
come together thar." 

"Amen!" said the Doctor. "Now let's start. I am 
on warlike deeds intent." 

" Quack ! quack ! quack !" sounded close by us, and 
one of those wayward ducks that sometimes, against all 
rules, skulks behind his comrades, got lip near us. The 
Doctor was standing up at the time, and fired, but from 
the rocking of the unsteady canoe he missed, as before. 

" What a shame, Doctor ! I shall not ride with you." 

" Try him, some one." 

" He's too far away !" said Jackson, with his gun half 
way to his shoulder. 

" Shoot him, Mike !" said Miss Jackson, turning to 
where the hunter sat in his canoe. 

Mike passed the back of his hand quickly across his 



THE DROWNED LANDS. 217 

forehead, as lie was wont sometimes to do when m earn- 
est, and raised his rifle to his shoulder. A second of 
pause, and the crack of the piece sounded. The duck 
had arisen perpendicularly until it had reached a height 
that gave it free passage over the reeds, and then taking 
its direction, was bearing away in a straight line, gra- 
dually decreasing in size as its velocity increased. At 
the report of Mike's rifle it fell over and over, striking 
the water with a splash, while in the air where it was 
flying one or two feathers floated away on the wind. 

" Well, done, that !" cried Jackson. 

Lou said nothing, but her kindling eye rested on the 
marksman, while a smile lit her whole face, and the party 
separated for the hunt. 

The Drowned Lands were formed by the sea banking 
up with a sandbar the outlet of a stream that ran through 
a low country. This natural dam flooded the lowlands 
on either side for several miles, and the soil being sandy, 
with a slight deposit of alluvial matter from the descend- 
ing fresh waters, many varieijies of grass and aquatic 
plants sprang up, and formed attractive food for the 
myriads of water-foAvl that here passed the winters. 
Patches of cane grew on the marshy land not yet covered 
with water. Osiers and rushes sprung from the shallow 
water, and a long grass, with a tassel like the onion, 
opened its crown and scattered its oily seeds over the 
water. Now and then a floating log, or some still living 
bulb that had come down the stream had taken root in 
the shallows, and formed an island, on which rose one or 

« 10 



218 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

two trees, and a rank vegetation of vines and grass. On 
tlie dead upper limbs of these trees the ahnega and other 
species of cormorants could "be seen all the day patiently 
watching for their prey in the shallows. Fancy could 
not picture a more suitable home for the water-fowl, 
whose food was abundant in the matted grass and succu- 
lent weeds, and who hid in bending rushes for better 
shelter from the northerly wdnds. 

Up this extended marsh our boats gently floated, each 
one following the ojDenings that seemed best, and diverg- 
ing so as to form an extended line. The negroes shipped 
their long oars, and used only the paddle, in order to 
move with greater stillness, and to pass through the nar- 
row openings. As we advanced, I soon lost sight of the 
other boats, but from time to time could tell their posi- 
tion from the report of their guns and the rising of the 
ducks they disturbed. I had changed positions with the 
men, taking the bow of the boat, and letting them pad- 
dle in the stern. 

*' Dar, Maussa, black duck !" whisjpered Scipio, after 
we had paddled a short distance, changing with a wave 
of his paddle the direction of the canoe, and pointmg it 
toward a mass of reeds that lay twisted and broken 
together, as though some wind had twisted them off half 
way up. 

I pointed my hand inquiringly to the reedb. Scipio 
nodded, and the boat floated up noiselessly as a fish. 
We were close by them, and no sign of the game, save 
a feather or two on the water. The neighboring tufls ni 



THE DEOWNED LANDS. 2l9 

grass shut out the wind, and it was warm and still, like 
summer in the grassy bower, while bright little fish darted 
aside on either bow of the boat. Then came a flopping 
soand, a rattle of the reeds, and the brazen cry that so 
many thousand times, in a thousand hearts, has sent the 
blood leaping with its old memory-haunted tone, 
" Qua-ack! qua-ack ! quack!" Some notes in this world 
are clearer, and some more rhyming, but there are few 
that when repeated, even far away, will so picture to the 
mind, in the twinkling of an eye, the. extended reach of 
sedge, the downy reeds, glassy water, and yonng hopes, 
with which it is so intimately associated. 

With the alarm cry two ducks broke forth, scattering 
the floss of the cat-tails in clouds about them, their long 
necks stretching out as though straining to be away. I 
aimed at the drake as he poised himself to bear away, 
and with the report of the piece he fell, head and wings 
pendent, with a splash on the water — a dead shot, I knew 
by the way he came down. The duck had gained some 
distance by this time, going straight away, as if te-rror 
chased her. ISTo fear of her escape ; the success of my 
first shot gave me confidence, and I knew the power of 
the httle Mullen gun I held at my shoulder. Canny John 
Mullen, in his grim little smithy in Ann street, working 
away with his brogue and cunning hand — how often I 
have thanked him when he never knew it ! " Quack ! 
quack !" The sound was faint from the distance when I 
fired, but the duck rolled over and over, with its wings 
spinning, till it was lost to sight. 



^20 



WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 



" Yali ! ha ! ya ! Maussa ; good shot. Did you ebber ? 
Well, now, I give up — dat beats dis child !" 

We paddled on, and found the first duck dead, and 
and the second with both wings broken, and easily 
secured. While loading, four ducks came flying over 
from the direction of the other boats. I hastily poured 
in some loose shot, and crouching do^n in the canoe, 
capped my gun, while I watched the birds approach, and 
when they were so near I could see the mottlmg on their 
breasts, arose suddenly to my feet. Scared by my sud- 
den aj^pearance, they breasted the air, swerving off to 
the right and left. Ho ! what fail* shots ! I could have 
killed them with a pistol. The first barrel brought two, 
the second one, and the other bird departed sadly 
frightened. 

Thus we passed on, getting fair shots every fifty yards 
at small bunches of ducks that arose from the little 
lagoons, and an occasional long shot at some jDassing bird 
that had been frightened from his proper feeding-ground 
by the incursion of the hunters. 

At the same time that the game Avas abundant, the 
scenery through which its pursuit Avas leading us was 
strikingly peculiar. The level waste of sedge extended 
beyond the vision, waving in the wind. The constant 
opening and closing of watery passages, the little reed- 
locked lakes, the tortuous course we were obliged to 
follow, the sameness of the grouping of the reeds and 
little islets, repeated over and over again till the miud 
was all afloat as to locality and distance ; the weird trees 



THE DEOWNED LANDS. 221 

with their dead and naked arms, and the occasional mass 
of broken reeds and matted drift-wood that in the sum- 
mer had formed the alligator's lair, all contributed to 
imjDress the mind with a feeUng of strangeness and soli- 
tude. The wild birds, too, were unwontedly familiar in 
their demeanor. Marsh hens ran over the drifts before 
the boat, and gulls came screaming around us. 

About three miles from where we had entered the 
Drowned Land, we came to the edge of open water, and 
found a large lake. Before entering it a glance ahead 
showed the further end of the pond literally covered with 
ducks. It was impossible, being on the same level^ to 
tell how many there were, but from the extent of their 
front hne they were very numerous. A hurried council 
of war was called to decide how they were best ap- 
proached, and after two or three plans had been pro- 
posed and discarded, it was settled that we should try 
and paddle around on the further side of the pond so as 
to be near the flock, and then take our chances of their 
coming over us, as they probably might when alarmed 
by the firing in the other boats. So with much care as 
to the noise we might make, and some self self-control in 
not firing at single ducks that would rise close by us, we 
ultimately got around the flock, so as to place them 
between us and the other boats. We pulled our canoe 
into the thickest of the grass that completely sheltered 
us, and from where I sat I could see the ducks lying on 
the open water, moving hither and thither, and diving 
down for the eel-grass below the surface. I immediately 



223 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

recognized them as the same flock of teal that came over 
at the early cla^\Ti. It was a beautiful thing to see so 
much graceful life so bountifully supplied and protected 
by its own instincts in the solitude. 

Away down the marsh came the frequent boom ! boom ! 
of my comrades' guns, but it did not seem to interfere 
with the comfort of the ducks, who still fed on, though 
keepmg out of shot from where I sat. Soon the report 
of the guns coming nearer caused the ducks to crowd 
together with all their heads up. There was a long 
pause, and then a negro's voice sounded close by : 
" Maussa Jackson, mark !" folloAved by the clear ringing 
of a double shoit, and at the sound up went my flock of 
ducks. Three or four arose first, and then the whole 
mass cleared the water ; and the beating of their wings 
on the surface was like a long continued roU of thunder. 
I had no conception, before they rose, of their great mul- 
titude. It seemed as if they could be counted by 
tens of thousands. When they had attained a sufficient 
height to overlook the meadow, they wheeled like the 
line of an army, and apparently catching sight of the 
other boats, came with the bright linings of then' wings 
turned to the sunlight, and their countless pinions hurt- 
ling through the air directly over the place where we 
were concealed. I had given Scipio, as a reward of 
merit, the musket I had brought with me, directing him 
to take his own time, and fire as he chose. He, how- 
ever, could not wait for the best shot, but fired as one 
wing of the ai-my wheeled over us. The aim was not a 



THE DPwOWNED LAND3. 223 

bad 0118, for a dozen ducks fell at the shot, and several 
more at intervals came slanting down from the flock. 
The effect of this unexpected attack drove the wing of 
the flock into tlie main body, clustering them together in 
a compact mass, when I fired both barrels. My stronger 
shooting gun bored a hole through the black mass, and 
tv.'enty-seven ducks fell on the open water, and two or 
three went dovv'n aslant into the reeds. Three and a 
half dozen ducks was the contribution that one flock 
made to our booty. I still looked longingly after them 
as they went floating around the horizon, like banks of 
minute flies that wave at midsumer from prominent 
points on the shores of Great Lakes, undulating with the 
wind. But they passed away in the dim horizon, pro- 
bably being imwiliing to make another trial of the 
Drov>med Lands after so unpleasant a reception. 

Hardly had we secured all our ducks, after re-shooting 
the winged ones, before the Doctor's canoe bui'st through 
the reeds. 

'' HuUoah !" 

"HuUoah!" 

" How many birds ?" 

" Ah ! plenty. Talk of hunting !" said the Doctor, 
" this is my hunter's paradise. A good boat to row. you, 
and boys to pick up the game; no running yourself 
out of breath, or heavy pack on your back !" And the 
speaker took ofl" his slouched hat, and rubbed his curly 
hair and shiny face with his handkerchief till it was all 
a-glow, laughing the while with his low musical voice. 



224r WILD SPOETS IN THE SOTJTH. 

" How many ducks, Miss Jackson ?" 
. "Oh, ten for idc, T believe; but tliey are beauties. 
Paddle up closer, boys, and let us see." 

" HuUoah ! where did you get all those ? Great is 
Diana, but that is a pretty sight !" exclaimed the Doctor, 
leaning over to look at our ducks, that were neatly piled 
up on one of the seats, with theii* breasts up, and their 
heads hanging one way. 

" These are out of the flock we saw come over to- 
day." 

" I thought so ; they just got up here, didn't they ? It 
was a noble flock — blue wings, all of them." 

" Oh ! there are your ducks. Why, you only have 
ten altogether. Where are those you shot. Doctor ?" 

" Oh, I didn't care to shoot. Miss Lou, here, is a 
pupil of mine, and I like to let her try." 

A su]3pressed nasal explosion from one of the boys in 
the Doctor's canoe mformed me, if I had needed the 
information, that the Doctor was not a very true hand 
T\dth the ducks, and that the lady was doing all the 
work. 

" Well, there is the Palm Tree Island, I presume, not 
a great way ahead. Is it time for lunch ?" 

" Yes, I think so," said Miss Jackson, " if appetite is 
any test." 

u rpjy some cold tea," said I, extending the bottle of 
that refreshing hunter's beverage. 

"Ah!" said she, after a long drink, "that is a spring 
in the desert." 



THE DEOWNED LANDS. 225 

" Let me try a little of that spring in the desert," said 
the Doctor. 

" Not till you tell me one thing," said I, getting pos- 
session of my bottle. "How many shots have you 
missed ?" 

" Will you give me the tea, then ?" 

"•Yes." 

"Honor bright?" 

"Yes." 

" Ten ! Give us the tea." 

" Ha ! ha ! you are looking at Miss Jackson when you 
should be at the ducks." 

The boys took the direction of the palm tree, and we 
paddled on together, getting up two or three birds. It 
was a pretty thing to see Lou Jackson shoot. She had 
a light double-barrelled gun, the same one she had used 
on the deer-hunt, and when the duck beat up to the level 
of the tall grass and poised for his flight, she fired with 
such accuracy that the bird generally fell in a shower of 
feathers, amid the Doctor's laughter and merry jokes. 
He did not pretend to shoot unless there were three or 
four ducks rising together, and then he generally fol- 
lowed their flight, with his gun to his shoulder, until, 
when a long way ofl", he would finally say " Too far," 
and takmg his gun down again, give a sigh of rehef, and 
look around for some more game. On reaching the little 
island we found Mike was there before us, and the 
negroes had landed the provisions and prepared our sim- 
ple meal. Yowler sat on the narrow beach, evidently 

10* 



226 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

more melancholy than usual at the unaccustomed nature 
of the sport, and seemed reflectmg upon the worthless- 
ness of birds as compared with deer and panthers. Wag 
ran around the limited extent of land several times with- 
out anything but a solitary snipe that went skapeing 
away, and then returned, to worry Yowler. Jackson 
soon came in with a couple of score of ducks, and we 
learned from him that the great body of the winter ducks 
had not yet come on. There were no geese, and no brant, 
and he said, what was easily credible, that late in the 
year a good sportsman could kill four hundred ducks a 
day. 

" But I will tell you what it is, I have seen English 
snipe flying over, and as we go home we will try some 
of those low islands outside, and get a dozen." 

" Much walking ?" suggested the Doctor. 

" No ; you can shoot from the boat." 

"I believe I am somewhat of a shot on English 
snipe," said the Doctor. " I remember once killing a 
dozen." 

" You didn't have Lou Jackson in the boat with you," 
I replied. 

'' No, somethmg a great deal worse — you were with 
me." 

" No, never — not when you killed a dozen English 
snipe." 

" Yes, I shot them all at one shot on the beach." 

" Fudge ! those were Yellow-legs." 

" May be they v.ere, but they were just as good." 



THE DEOWNED LANDS. 227 

" Doctor, try a piece of hot venison steak, or some 
cold bar ?'* 

" No bear for me ; I ^vould be thinking all the time 
about his ugly teeth when he was shot." 

" It is not his teeth, but my own, I am afraid of," said 
Miss Jackson, laughing ; " give me some corn-bread, if 
you please, Mike." 

" What are we to do with all these ducks ?" said tho 
Doctor ; " we can never eat them." 

"Yourn?" asked Mike. 

A laugh. 

" No, ours; those defunct, and those that are to be." 

"Never fear, a camp of fourteen people requires some- 
thing more than Indian corn." 

" What are you toasting there before the fire, Mike ?" 

" Breast of crane." 

" Let me try a piece !" asked Lou. 

" Sartin ; it's better en deer's meat," he replied, hand- 
ing over a strip on the end of his toasting-stick. 

" See de ducks !" exclaimed the negroes, les? busy 
than we with their dinner, as a long train of ducks camo 
floating over, pencilling the clear sky. 

" Those are mallards," said Jackson. 

" How can you tell so far off, father ?" 

" By the shape and color, I think ; I can hardly tell 
how. They vrould be black duck, if they were not 
lighter in complexion. Am I not right, Mike ?" 

" Reckon," replied Mike, following the passing cloud 
with his eye till they faded away, and then continued, 



228 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

musingly: "Some takes kindly to that kind o' larnin'. 
Some kin tell what kind o' duck is comin' by tlie sound 
he makes beatin' the air. Thar was Picardo, Picardo 
Duck Legs he was called, because he had bow legs. 
Wall, that man hved in his canoe, and he could tell what 
a duck was a-goin' to do jist by the waggin' of his tail. 
He had lived on duck-meat so long he could smell a duck 
hke a pointer dog. Thar's the natur' o' man ; when God 
gives him a callin' he's bound to go it, or be a lazy cuss 
ever arterwards. Duck Legs was no a'count on shore, 
but it larnt a man somethin' to paddle a canoe with 
hmi." 

" Come, boys," said Jackson, lighting his cigar, " it's 
high noon now, and there are seven miles from here to 
the open water, and seven more to Bonda Key, and two 
dozen snipe to kill on the way." 

" And some more duck before we leave here," said the 
Doctor. 

" Mhid your bearings now, or we will get lost here. 
There is no palm tree to row back to." 

" Take the range of this palm-tree, and sunset ; purty 
good marks, both on 'em," said Mike. 

"All aboard!" cries the Doctor. "Push off!" and 
away we went, or at least the three boats went, leaving 
Mike watching our departure, smoking away at his 
cigarette, seemingly as unconscious as his hound that sat 
beside him. 

There were some good shots made, as we returned, at 
the various bunches of ducks that were hid away in the 



THE DKOWNED LANDS. 229 

close coverts of the reeds, Lou Jackson, in particular, 
firing very exact, although her gun was so light that the 
game sometimes refused to come down. We were a 
good deal together, as we were paddUng more to return 
than to get game, and only shot those birds we saw on 
our way. Once, while paddling fast, a wood-duck drake 
arose from an open pool, uttering his wheezmg cry of 
"Oh hee!" "Oh hee!" as he stretched away. Lou 
fired, and at the shot he staggered and sunk for a mo- 
ment, while a dozen feathers floated away, and then he 
rose agam. 

" Stop ! stop !" she cried, as I raised my gun to shoot, 
"Iliit him! I hit him!" 

But the duck didn't fall, and contmued his flight until 
lost in the distance. 

" Oh, what a fool I was ! I forgot all about I had 
another barrel ! And why didn't I let you shoot ? But 
I thought, to be sure, he would fall." 

" Why didn't you shoot, Doctor ?" I asked. 

" Oh, I thought he would fall, too." 

Sometimes we would come across a floating log sur- 
rounded by feathers, and worn smooth by the tread of 
the wood-ducks that would sit here half the day pluming 
themselves by the mirror of the water. The hazel- 
breasted drakes here displayed their Tyrian plumage and 
elegant shapes to their dove-eyed consorts, and scolded 
away the little bitterns that alone could compare in 
beauty to themselves, and who alike with them inhabited 
these great morasses. We sometimes would suddenly 



230 WILD SPOETS m THE SOUTH. 

float on one of those happy families, dozing away tho 
sunny hours, and they would arise, when we were closo 
upon them, in the greatest disorder. The ringing of a 
lialf dozen shots, the fall of the game, the shout and 
laugh, would end the scene, and break upon the stillness 
of the solitude with a burst of fun and activity all tho 
wilder for being so rarely heard in the marshes. 

We had almost reached the confine of the open water, 
when Jackson fired at a black duck flying overhead, and 
it fell in the water, wing'broken, and immediately dove. 
He commenced, with the assistance of the Doctor's boat, 
to look for the game, probing with his paddle the bunches 
of floating sedge near by, while I, lying a little further 
ofi", was watching their search. While thus eng;aged, I 
happened to notice under the water a duck swimming 
toward the surface; it was the wounded duck trying to 
escape. I saw a bill protruded from the water, the duck 
in the mean time keepmg his head and body completely 
hidden. I leaned over my boat and caught the nose of 
the cunning fellow, bringing him above water amid the 
shouts of the negroes who witnessed the trick. 

Being joined by ^like, who had turned aside to get 
some roots with which to color deer-skins, we all passed 
through the narrow outlet of the marsh, and turned to- 
ward the low islands, where it was said we could find 
snipe. 

"Round that grape-\dne point!" called out Jackson, 
as the headlands we had passed in the morning again 
opened to our view. 



THE DROWNED LANDS. 231 

The paddles had been exchanged for oars, and with, 
long, measured strokes, keepmg tune to the song of the 
oarsmen, the lithe boats skimmed the water toward the 
low islands Jackson had indicated to us. On reaching 
the shore we found the land was marshy and wet, and 
about half the area overgrown with flags, now blown 
down by the fall winds. 

"Xot a bad place; is it?" said Jackson, looking 
around the island. 

" By no means ; see these little red-scummed puddles, 
and bare spots of mud ; they'd make a snipe's bill water." 

" Escape ! escape !" shrieked a snipe, as he sprung 
into the air a few yards in front of us, tacking from side 
to side, and settling again on the further side of a little 
pond. 

" There, I told you so ! Hold on now till I draw my 
duck shot. Lou, are you ready ?" 

" Ready as I will be. I am going to rely on the Doc-* 
tor." 

"I will take a Httle fine shot, then. I follow your 
lead, Jackson." 

" Mike, are you ready ?" 

"Yes, I reckon, 'bout, though I don't see nothin' to 
shoot here." 

" You just keep even, and we will see plenty to shoot. 
Send out your dog, Doctor." 

" Hi on, Wag ! Hi on !" but TYag seemed to suspect 
some trick under such unaccustomed attention, and 
skulked behind his master. 



232 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

The first step ahead sprung another snipe, and, being 
intent on the game, I shot it as it balanced. 

" Hulloah ! give a fellow time," said the Doctor. 

" That bird flew right in the way of the shot !" said 
Mike, his eye kindling, and his month expressing a great 
deal of doubt and curiosity. 

"Have you ever killed a snij^e, Lou?" said I, the 
formality of the family name having been gradually 
dropped, on all sides, as the freedom of our huntmg ex- 
cursions brought us into closer intimacy. 

" Yes, two ; I never had much opportunity for such 
game, and never learned to shoot them on the 
wing." 

" Now is your chance, then ; there goes a shot." 

Two barrels were discharged, one by Jackson, and one 
by the Doctor, but the birds went off. 

" There, I know I can do better than that," remarked 
Miss Jackson, looking at the bird skimming over the 
ground. 

" I'm sure you kin," said Mike. 

"Escape!" "Escape!" "Escape!" croaked out three 
birds, as they launched away from before us. Miss 
Jackson fired a double shot, and one bird fell. 

"Well done, that!" 

"Escape!" croaked another bird, as it rose on our left 
among some flags. Mike, who had been watching the 
hunt with great interest, ejaculated, "Wall, I'll take a 
turn now !" and, aiming with his rifle, fired. The bird 
fell as if knocked by a ball-bat, and Mike on going up to 



THE DROWNED LANDS. 233 

it said, as lie lifted it up by its wings, " Knocked into a 
grease-spot !" 

There was a universal laugh at the quaint figure of the 
hunter, in his buckskm suit, and the air of derison with 
which he picked up his fragment of a bird, and held it 
at arm's length. 

"Wall, ef anybody had told me that I would have 
ever gone a-birdin' with this ere old rifle, I would hev 
told that body he was a fool !" 

Wag seemed to have got somewhat in the mood of 
hunting around, inspired by our shouts and firing, and 
ran about hither and yon, springing the birds up before 
us like a cocking sj)aniel. 

" There !" Lou called out to the Doctor, as the dog got 
up another bird, " I told you that dog had a great deal 
of intelligence ; this is the very first time, would you be- 
lieve it, he has ever been hunted over snipe." 

"I can certamly credit it," answered Jackson, drily, 
as he capped his gun. 

Away went another snipe, right before the Doctor, 
who banged away with both barrels, and brought down 
the bird. 

" There, I killed him ! Fetch him here, Wag ! Fetch, 
good dog." 

Wag ran for the bird, but, instead of bringing him in, 
picked him up and ran away with might and main, pur- 
sued by the Doctor, shouting at the top of his voice, amid 
peals of laughter. The race Avas a short one, for the 
Doctor's figure was not adapted to running, and the 



234: WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOrTH. 

island was wet, and full of little quagholes, in one of 
which the Doctor fell, and was unable to move a single 
step, and Wag, deliberately lying down on the other 
side, ate up the prize. 

" Oh, Poke, what an invaluable dog !" 

" Hold your tongue, will you, and help me out. Throw 
me a piece of stick to stand on. You, Scip ! you lazy 
negro, bring me an oar. I am all out of breath ;" and 
lie poUshed his face with his handkerchief, as if the true 
remedy for his misfortune was in active friction. 

" Escape ! Escape !" said two more snipe, getting up 
right by the Doctor. Bang ! bang ! and they both fell 
at the shot. 

" Hold hard there, don't shoot over me that way ; just 
think, I can't dodge !" cried the Doctor, waving his hand 
energetically toward us. 

^' That proves your valor in the face of danger. There's 
Scipio with a log. Now, altogether — that's it ! Why, 
Doctor, you look as though you had high top-boots 
onl'^ 

"ISTever mind, it is clean mud," he replied, good- 
humoredly. 

"Wag, seeing himself unnoticed, came in to where we 
were standing. But, alas for his hide ! Jackson caught 
him, and administered to him such a castigation, all the 
while holding him up by the tail with one hand, while he 
applied a stick with the other, that Wag retired fi-om 
the active pursuits of the chase to the more dignified re- 
tirement of private life under the seats of one of the 



THE DROWNED LANDS. 235 

canoes, where he disposed of the remams of the dinner- 
basket before our return. 

" Now we are all ready, let us form in a line, and beat 
down the island regularly," said Jackson, the ardor of the 
hunt awakening him from much of his listlessness. " Fall 
in, boys ; one of you walk betAveen each of the hunters." 

The long, irregular line being formed, it stretched 
nearly across the island, and we advanced, sinking in the 
soft rnud occasionally, but oftener finding a sandy bot- 
tom, with pools of water. The snipe were abundant ; we 
could see them sometimes on the ground in couples, on 
which occasions the Doctor would always fire with pretty 
certain success. Most frequently they arose singly, 
uttering their peculiar harsh cry, and were tumbled over 
by one or other of the' party before they had gone five 
yards, amid the shouts and guffaws of the negroes. 
Mike, occasionally, when a bird got up at a little distance, 
would make " a grease spot " of it with the same shame- 
faced look as he had when he picked up the first one, 
apparently doubting if he and his rifle were in respectable 
business. 

Lou shot well, after a little practice, and she trod over 
the flags, with her eye fixed ahead of her, with that 
earnestness of look that a person attains never so greatly 
as when watching for upspringing game that he feels 
confident he can hit. 

" Mark !" called Scipio, as a snipe launched in the air 
from our feet, the brown and hazel pointings on his back 
glittering like soldiers' bayonets at the charge. The first 



236 WILD spoETS m the south. 

spring he makes seems to toss him twenty feet in air, and 
then a paiise, as he coUects his wings to strike out on 
that erratic swinging motion that is his safety and beauty. 
He eyes the array of pursuers behind him, and hears 
their strange talking ; he sees before hun his accustomed 
haunts and oozy swales, and hears the rustlmg of the 
reeds that shelter his mates. In the pride of swiftness, 
rings out his exulting cry, the same that had made vocal 
the great morasses of the Coppermine River, where he 
was nested, and the same by which, through the ghostly 
night, in the upper air, from front, to rear, had kept in 
rank the long flight of his kindred in their semi-annual 
migration — " Escape !" 

Pang ! rings the clear shot, and over falls the wild bird 
among the sedge. 

" Golly ! Missa Lou, yah ! ha ! he dead !" shouted one 
of the negroes. " Makes dis child piccaninny agin to see 
his young missus wake 'em up so !" said Big Sam. 

"Mark! Mark!" "Escape!" "Escape!" Two more 
snipe sprung up, followed by two shots, and they fell 
ahead of us in the grass, and then there arose three or 
four together. The island seemed to be full of them, 
and when raised, they would dodge about m long irregu- 
lar circles, calling up others from the grass, until they 
collected in whisps above us, and bore away to some 
-adjoining islands. 

It was difficult to keep the line regular, for the negroes 
were full of excitement in picking up wounded birds, 
and seeing others spring beside them. Indeed, we 



THE DROWNED LANDS. 237 

wanted no dogs, for every bird on the island was raised, 
and there was so little heavy grass we lost no dead ones. 
Occasionally we would start one of those heavy grey 
herons that frequent such marshes, flapping up heavily 
from the grass, and casting his keen eye back over his 
shoulder at the intruders; and twice we started that 
tiny prince of the heron tribe, the smallest and most 
beautiful of all the genus Ardea, called the Least Bit- 
tern in the books, but which the people sometimes name 
the Tiger Bittern, from his brindled coat and wild eye. 
We shot them both, and Lou, wrapping them carefully 
in her handkerchief for preserving, stovf ed them away 
in one of the pockets of her hunting josey, as she styled 
a close-buttening canvas jacket she wore when camp- 
ing out. 

At last the point of the island was reached, and while 
the men were sent back for the boats we sat down on 
the beach and counted out thirty-six snipe. Takmg some 
willow switches, we ran them through their bills, care- 
fully smoothing down their ruffled plumage and washing 
off the occasion mud, and made as beautiful six bunches 
of game as ever delighted a fowler's eye. Even Mike 
consented to praise, with the reserving clause that we 
had wasted too much powder and shot on them. How 
graceful they looked beside the green-headed mallards, 
and the dusky ducks that were piled knee deep in the 
boats. 

"A glorious day, well spent," said Jackson, as the 
island on which we had been shooting dwindled in the 



^S8 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

water, red with the reflection of the sunset, and Bonda 
Key oj^ened its headland of stately verdure. 

"Ay, it is!" responded one and all; and the boats 
flitted along the glassy waters side by side, the shadows 
fading and brightening with the glow of the sky, or the 
twilight of the shore, as one and then the other opened 
in the west. The hunters stretched their weary limbs in 
listless attitudes, and their heads swayed to the spring- 
ing motion imparted by the oar. Miss Jackson sat in the 
bottom, trailing her hands in the water on either side of 
the boat, while the oarsmen sang, with deep voices and 
perfect time, the great old negro boat-song : 

" Gen'ral Jackson migbty man, 
Waugh my kingdom, fire away ! 
Fought on sea, and fought on land, 
"Waugh my kingdom, fire away!" 



THE SKIN OF THE TIGEK CAT. 239 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE SKIN OP THE TIGEE-CAT. 

" A dragon's tail -was flayed to warm 
A. headless maiden's heart." 

A NUMBER of days flew by at our island home in the 
simple pleasures narrated in our last chapters. The 
cheering cry of the hounds, as they scoured the islands, 
the ringing shots in the marshes, now a long exploration 
in the canoes through the wmding channels of the archi- 
pelago, and again some expedition to the uttermost keys, 
where the pelicans, dressed themselves on the sandy 
points in lines like soldiers, and strange sea-birds, excited 
our wonder and admiration, were the daily amusements 
of the party. Once in a while the members of the hunt 
would branch oiT, and while one party joursued the chase, 
another would make an excursion to the main land, or 
fish in the rivers. The weather had been constantly 
clear. One cloudless day would follow another with an 
exhilarating yet motionless air, that seemed as if nature 
had exhausted her prodigality of production, and then, 
breathless, had paused to dream. 

Once in a while Mike would disappear, and be gone 



240 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

for a day or a night, but as he never made any remark on 
what he saw or did, no one seemed to take any note of 
his incomings or outgomgs. One evening, after he had 
returned from one of these lonely excursions, I was sit- 
ting by the willow copse on the shore, castmg with my 
line into the channel after some large fish I had noticed 
were breaking the- water very near the shore. The 
negroes were getting sujDper ready, and Lou Jackson 
came walking down to the beach, where Mike joined her, 
and they came toward the boats on the other side of 
the willows, and so near I could hear their conversa- 
tion. 

" Miss Lou, I've been a wantin' to see you." 

A pause followed. 

" That is, you don't see me every day." 

" Yes, oh ! yes ; but then it aren't every time that a 
man wants to see. I mean it aren't — I mean sometimes 
a man wants mighty bad to see some 'un, and talk to 'em, 
an' sometimes I want to see you more an' others." 

" Well !" said Miss Jackson, moving on slowly toward 
the boat-landing. 

" End ef I was the Doctor, I could say anything, and 
talk right through a board fence ; he's oncommon nice at 
talkm', he is," said Mike, looking earnestly at his partner's 
face, who looked seaward, but did not reply to this expres- 
sion of opinion. " Thar's somethin' I want to say. Miss 
Lou," contuiued Mike, "end I'd a leetle reether say it 
to you than to any o' them folks there, for they wunt 
believe it, they wunt." 



THE SKIN OF THE TIGEK CAT. 241 

"Well, Mike, what is it ?" 

" Wall, it's this hyur ; you'd better get yer father to 
quit that plantation of his, and move up the country a 
leetle, or else down to Tampa, fur things ain't all right 
'bout hyur." 

" "What is there wrong?" 

"Wall, there's somethin' wrong with them copper- 
head snakes, the Injms. Yer can't see it yet, but things 
amt right, and yer all so far away from everybody at 
the house that no one kin help you. Yer negroes aint 
worth nothin' of any 'count in case of difficulty, and 
yer father amt over liked in the swamp. Thar's nothin' 
wrong yet, and may be won't be at all, but they are jist 
like painters, and yer don't know where to find 'em." 

" Why, what have you seen wrong ?" said the young 
girl, stopping by her boat, and looking at Mike inquir- 
ingly. 

" Kary a tlimg, only them fellows have been down 
here, and I don't Hke it," 

" But they come to the house, why not here ? You 
are harsh in your opinion of them." 

" Because they have nothin' to call 'em here. They've 
been about without showin' themselves, and that's sus- 
picious. They knew we were here, for they can see our 
trails all about, yet they didn't stop, and they tried to 
leave no trail themselves, and that's a bad sign. 'Twunt 
do any good to say so to your father, but you kin make 
him do what's safe, end so I tell you." 

" Thank you, Mike. I believe you know better than 

11 



243 WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

any one about such things, but I do not believe father 
would leave now, and I can't make him without a 
stronger reason than you have given." 

" Wall, look out ; and the time to look out is jist when 
everything is oncommin pleasant, for that's the blind with 
these sarpcnts. Thar's somethin' else I want to say, 
Miss Lou," continued Mike, after a pause. 

Miss Jackson looked at the hunter as though inquir- 
ing his wishes. She leaned against the prow of the canoe 
that was hauled up on the beach, but did not say a 
word. 

" Wall, I was goin' to say that — that — wall, thar haint 
been many Tiger-cats in Floridy, and ef thar hadn't been 
any^ I reckon I would hev got that one fur you, fur you 
know that ef a man — ef a man likes anybody — as much 
as" — 

Mike here made a long pause. Lou Jackson had 
gathered up her cloak from the boat that she had ap- 
parently come down for, and turning slowly toward tho 
tents, seemed moving away. 

" Don't go yet. Miss Lou," said the hunter, beseech- 
ingly. 

'•' I am in a great hurry," said the girl ; which, if so, 
was the first time she had been in a hurry since coming to 
the island. 

" Wait one minute," besought Mike, brushing his hand 
across his forehead ; " here's the Tiger-cat skin you once 
said you wanted," unfolding, as he spoke, from under his 
hmiting-coat, the flowing robe of an animal gracefully 



THE SKIN OF THE TIGEK CAT. 

patched with yellow and black. " It's tanned as soft as 
store-goods," he continued; "I shot it this day two 
weeks, and an Injin woman tanned it for me." 

*' Thank you, Mike ; that is the prettiest skin I ever 
saw," leaning her face down until it was hidden in the 
glossy folds of the robe. 

" "Wall, it is ; but I wish it was a heap purtier for 
you." 

Miss Jackson moved on toward the camp slowly, but 
Mike stood with his hand leaning on the prow of the 
stranded boat. She had gone a few steps, when, con- 
scious that he was not following, she said : 

" Come and see hoAv they will admire it at the camp ; 
that is the greatest trophy of the year !" 

" IInTo, it isn't no trophy," said Mike, in an extenuating 
tone, not moving from kis place ; " it is the best I had to 
give you, Lou Jackson. I'd give you anything you'd 
ask fur." His deep voice quivered as he spoke. 

"Thank you, Mike, thank you!" said Lou, turnuig 
hastily to the hunter and seizing his hand, " it is every- 
thing I want !" and then as hastily dro^Dping it, as 
though frightened at her own eagerness, she walked 
rapidly toward the camp, bearing with her the skin, and 
leaving Mike standing by the boat, mth his eyes fixed 
on her receding figure. His stalwart frar^e was bent, 
and with the breech of his rifle he ground a hole in the 
heavy sand. A dog, one of the w^andering curs from the 
camp, coming to the water's edge, set up a doleful cry 
near him. 



24A WILD 6P0ETS IN THE SOUTH. 

*' Shut up, lliar, or I'll send a ball after you, and let 
tlie bark all out the wrong way !" he said, and tossing 
his rifle in the hollow of his arm, strode away down the 
bay. The words that he had been pondering over, it 
may bo for months, had remained all unspoken ; the very 
robe that he had taken, with leagues of walking and 
weeks of waiting, that he had ornamented with all the 
taste of the woods, had only procured him a moment's 
gratitude, and the bold heart that for years had been 
unmoved by a life of peril, by ceaseless nameless dangers, 
by night and day, was frightened into hesitation and 
silence by a young girl. 

The sun had gone down, the shadows lengthened on 
the long sandy reaches ; it grew dark almost in a moment. 
Mike disappeared in the dusk, while from the knoll where 
the fires were lighted Lou Jackson was watching the 
way he went. 



SFPPEE. 245 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SUPPER. 

La decouverte d'un mets nouveau fait plus pour le bonheur du genre 
humain que la decouverte d'une 6toile. — Brillat Savakin. 

Who is there, accustomed to American rural scenery, 
that cannot remember the summons that calls to dinner 
at the country farm ? A stout housewife, when the sun- 
dial points to noon, walks out on the lawn, among the 
inverted milk-pans, where lies the house-dog stretched 
under the locust trees, and, turning her face toward 
the harvest-field gives a long, winding blast on the horn 
that wakes the echoes down the orchard, and over the 
meadow, and all along the hills, calling the farmers to 
their noontide meal. The watch-dog howls at the sum- 
mons, and the workmen by the brook, and in the sultry 
grain, toss their cradles by and turn homeward, the 
heavy oxen saunter away in couj)les, and the horses are 
unhitched and fastened in the shade by the trough of 
corn. The farmer, with his stalwart sons, and "the 
hands," crowd into the kitchen, with their necks bare to 
the pleasant wind, and the sweat of their labors on their 
brow. The laugh is light, the Avords are gentle, for they 
are confined to the simple subjects of the cro23s, the 



246 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

weather, and the farm news. The goodwife is at tho 
head of the table, and pours out the tea or milk ; the 
daughters sit among the men, coming and going as 
occasion requii-es to bring water, or bread, or pie. Their 
attire is plam, their manners are simple and frank. Be- 
fore the old man there sits a huge dish of stew ; it is 
made of potatoes, carrots, chicken, and large squares 
of boiled fat pork, and he helps it out with no niggard 
hand, and when he has finished his ovm portion, he quafis 
a huge cup of cider, and leans back in his chair with a 
great sigh of satisfaction, to wait till his youngest 
daughter, with brown hair and blue eyes, just opening 
into womanhood, brings his pie. The brass candle-sticks 
on the mantle-piece are filled with asparagus boughs, the 
oaken floor is pohshed with scrubbing, and the tall 
clock in the passage-way strikes one as the meal is ended. 
There is another dinner scene that may be as often re- 
marked in America, and equally characteristic of another 
class of eaters. A bell rings, or a jangling gong shocks 
the ear and benumbs every nerve of the back, while five 
and forty men rush past the waiter that is beating his 
brazen drum, and sit down to a large hotel table. There 
are spread on this table various small articles of food or 
ornament, such as celery, oranges, and figs, which are 
immediately seized, and jDresently every person who has 
evinced agility congratulates himself on having piled by 
the side of his plate a selection of these fruits and desserts. 
Waiters then hand every person a dish of soup, of that 
consistency that is supposed to be proper to nourish per- 



6UPPEK. 24-7 

Bons in the last stage of disease. In a moment after, the 
soup dishes are snatched away, and the guest is informed 
he can have his selection from any one of almost every 
kind of beast that walks the earth, or fowl that flies the 
air, or fish that swims in the water. Being a temperate 
man, he orders roast beef, and in a moment is supplied 
with a largo slice of overdone, brown roast beef, flooded 
with a light-colored gravy, a small dish of potatoes Is 
slammed on the table beside him, and a plate of macca- 
roni. He takes a spoonful of potatoes, but finds them 
very watery, and filled with darker colored lumps of un- 
mashed vegetable. He hesitates, and tries the beef; it 
is tasteless ; he tries the maccaroni, and small streams of 
water run out of the pendent pipes as from a disconnected 
engine hose. The bread is dry and cut in small oblong 
I^ieces. He wonders what there is better cooked, and 
if he is a stranger, he probably looks at liis neighbors 
to see what they are eating. The upper end of the board 
is occupied by ladies, that have effected their entrance 
to the dining-room by some side-door, and they are ar- 
rayed in all the colors of the rainbow, and the glitter of 
ornaments, and seem to be busy talking loudly and look- 
ing along the table. The long rows of gentlemen are 
busy, without the interchange of a word, eating rapidly 
of everything that is placed before them. While our 
guest is remarking these things, his plate is taken away 
by the waiter, and he notices the gentlemen are all eating 
dessert, or leaving the table, having finished their dinner. 
The waiter asks him what he Avill have for dessert. Ho 



248 WILD SPOETS m tiie south. 

demands to know what there is to have. The answer is 
given so rapidly, it sounds as follows : 

"Ap pi — pi-p — mi pi — ca pi — rat pi!" 

The guest gets confused, mildly inquires if they have 
any fruit. 

" Yes, sah. Apple dumpling, sah." 

" Yery well ; I will take an apple dumpling." 

"Hard or soft, sah?" referring to the sauce. 

" Oh, soft, of course ;" referring to the dumpling. 

The dumpling is dashed down in front of him, as hard 
as a cocoa-nut, and flooded in soft sauce, while the waiter 
disappears down the table, gathering up the plates with a 
clatter, and the room is deserted by all but the wonder- 
ing observer, who has not yet acquired the local rapidity 
-of eating. 

Once more an American table looms up before me 
through the mist of hungry years, as I have seen it a 
thousand times. A low frame-house, with a porch half 
covered with the trailing arms of morning-glories and 
columbines, stands on a knoll of a western prairie. That 
prairie is browsed by deer in thousands, and game birds 
of the choicest kind feed on it in countless milHons. The 
river winds along the valley, teeming with fish, its banks 
margined with water-cresses and dock, and shaded with 
plum-trees and fruit-bearing vines, while from his cabin- 
door the settler can see a hundred cattle cropping the 
wild grass. 

IsToon-tune arrives, and the head of the house comes 
in from the ploughing to his meal, and finds the same 



SUPPEE. 



249 



food that was spread before him at breakfast, and that 
he will have for his supper, and has had at all his meals 
for a month past, so he should love it well. It consists 
of tea, Indian corn bread, and fried pork. The pork is 
cut in small slices, and fried until quite brown, and the 
bread is sopped in the gravy. There is no attempt at 
grace of service to make amends for the rude cookery, 
no white cloth to hide the table, no dainty pat of butter 
on a grape leaf, such as tempts the eyes as well as the 
palate in the Tyrolean chalet ; but it is the plain simple 
medicine to cure a hungry stomach, administered with- 
out any sweetening. 

The refinement of a family is nowhere so quickly seen 
as at a table, and nowhere do men's sensual selfish 
instincts become more prominent. There is the centre 
of the family after the day's wandering, there its first 
meeting after a night of forgetfulness ; there we give 
hospitality to the stranger, there the tongue is loosened, 
the wandering thoughts called back, and the heart is 
warmed into expression by generous wine. The feasts 
of LuCuUus wQve celebrated for their Tvit, according to 
the fashion of the day, and the simple suppers at the 
Mermaid were the signals for the intellectual tournament 
of England's greatest minds. " He has eaten with me," 
is the Arab's talisman to protection, and the Christian 
has made a supper the emblem of his religion. Then 
what constitutes a supper, even the simple half of a 
meal, being the food and its preparation, apart from its 
physiological bearings, is worthy of thoughtful study. 

11* 



250 WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

As to that other half of a dmner, the people that are to 
sit around it, they being chosen only on festive occasions, 
to them I do not allude. Equally unportant to a man's 
physical being, as to his moral health, is the character of 
his food. It may be insufficiently cooked, crude, and indi- 
gestible ; it may be overdone, sodden and heavy ; it may 
be dried to a chip, until the nutritive juices are evapo- 
rated, or it may be fried to an oily mass that requires 
the strongest stomach to analyze. Then, again, the food 
that was originally am]Dle and rich may be so wasted by 
the culinary process, that what was once abundant is 
prodigally reduced. One or the other of these faults 
universally affects nearly every dish that is placed on the 
American tables. To avoid such evils, and cook suffi- 
ciently without wasting, and in the most economical 
quantities, is a high art of life, and one of the simplest 
and most overlooked. It is slighted by the intelligent, 
and left in the hands of the ignorant, and those whose 
duty it was to govern are punished in health and pro- 
perty for their own neglect. Almost every one can 
remember having eaten of simj)le meals that were as 
good as any king's ; sometimes they were found at a pri- 
vate table, where white hands, that were dear to him, 
have spread the cloth ; sometimes they have been served 
in some out of-the-way Gallic auberge, when the hungry 
traveller was even doubting if in a place so destitute he 
could find anything to eat ; and again it may be, they 
have been spread in that chief of all hostelries, that reck- 
less home of self-reliance, the camp beneath the green- 



SUPPEE. 251 

wood tree. Oh, dear beyond all cafes^ and green wlien 
Vcrey's shall be forgotten, is that spreading blanket- 
cloth, those bark platters, and flashing tires, by which so 
many meals have been cooked and heartily eaten. Don't 
laugh. Epicurean, who reads these lines in a big city, 
where for years fancy cooks have manufactured spiced 
dinners at Midas prices, and do not say it was only the 
appetite, and not the dinner, that was marvellously good. 
Though it is easy to cook when you have skillet and spi- 
der, bake oven and basting spoon, griddle, pan, sauce- 
dish, pot, skewers, rotary jacks, earthen dishes, and a 
double acting patent kitchen range, yet still there are 
more good meals cooked in this world without them 
than with them, and this reminds me of the last dinner 
we had at our camp on Bonda Key. 

There had been a long hunt that had lasted from' day- 
break till almost sunset, and v\'e were tired and hungry, 
and a certain feeling of approaching separation had come 
over us that made exertion necessary, and so we went to 
work with a will to cook a good meal. It is true, our 
utensils for cooking were few and simple ; they consisted 
of one iron kettle, one tin coffee pot, and a dozen tin 
cups — a small hatterie de cuisine for a legitimate cook, 
but they were ample for us. The fire had been burning 
for a week, and thus there were plenty of hard coals. 
The material consisted of some Indian meal, bear's meat, 
venison, wild ducks, wild turkey, red-fish, turtle eggs, and 
6nipe. The cooks were Mike, the Doctor, Lou Jackson, 
and myself; the scullions were all the negroes of the island. 



252 WILD sroETS in the south. 

" Poke, you attend to the birds, will you ?" I said, 
handing over a bunch of snipe that Rose had just picked 
as clean as apples, and that were all nicely drawn, and 
had their bills stuck in their breasts as tliough trying to 
plume their lost feathers. 

"]^o*s«>," replied the Doctor, emphatically; " ««y 
body can cook snipe, I am going to attend to the side 
dishes — les entremets^ vol-au-vents^ and the ^:>c^^e5." 

" Nonsense ! there are no side dishes, and plenty of 
substantial food that can be roasted," interposed Jack- 
son. 

" Yes, yes. Doctor, give us an entremet. 

* Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd, 
With jellies soother than the creamy curd. 
And lucid syrups tinct with cinnamon.' " 

" Wait awhile," said the Doctor ; " I mil show you a 
dish that will make you forget poetry." 

As he selected a couple of flat stones, and commenced 
pounding up some biscuit that were so hard they had 
been declined by all the party since the conmiencement 
of the hunt. 

" You, Sam, bring me a fork," said Jackson, as he 
approached the fire with a square of the loin of bear's 
meat, nicely cut for roasting. The fork was produced, 
which was a stout branch of green wood, and carefully 
pushed into the sand at such an inclination that the meat 
would be between the fire and the wood ; the roasting 
piece was carefully impaled thereon, and in a Httle while 



suppEK. 253 

was hissing away before the heat as musically as if in a 
Dutch oven. 

Mike had, in the ineamvlule, plucked a pair of young 
black ducks, fastening their wings to their bodies with 
httle sassafras skewei-s so they should not get burned, 
and tying them by their legs to long strings, hung them 
near the fire on high sticks. They looked like bales of 
cotton, or hke horses when they are suspended by tackles 
to be hoisted on shipboard. The strings being then 
tightly t^visted, gave a rotary motion to the birds that 
presented every side equally to the fire, and j^revented 
them from burning. A few fragrant leaves, and a dozen 
oysters bemg stufifed in each one, answered in the place 
of dressing. 

Lou Jackson prepared the corn-bread as only a South- 
woman can, and it was laid on a flat stone that had been 
carefully selected, and had served for this purpose for 
several previous dinners, and it would have been a plea- 
sant amusement to see the white dough gradually becom- 
ing mahogany brown before the fire, had we not each 
been busy with the more delicate duties of the 
kitchen. 

I made the boys cut some long wooden skewers, and 
Rose, having cut a deer's liver in small square pieces, an 
inch in diameter, we impaled a half dozen of these little 
cubes on each skcAver, and stuck them up before the fire 
at a safe distance from the coals. A piece of bear's fit of 
the same size as the piece of liver was stuck on the top 
of each skewer, so that as the heat of the fire gradually 



254: WELD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

melted it, the liver was basted by the dropping fat, with- 
out any further attention being needed. Next a redfish, 
with its scales left on, but carefully drawn, and wiped 
dry, was rolled in green leaves, and buried deep in the 
hot ashes. 

Poke, by this time, had comj^leted his ship-biscuit 
powder, and been to the beach with Pompey Duffield 
Sah, from whence he returned with two large bivalve 
shells, resembling gigantic clam-shells, which had been 
left by the waves on the beach, which he carefully 
washed, and greased with bear's fat, and then sprinkled 
with his ship-biscuit powder. 

" That a poultice you are going to have there. Doc- 
tor ?" said Jackson. 

" Ko, gruel," I suggested. Poke maintained a scorn- 
ful silence, contmuing his labor and making another trip 
to the beach with Pompey, from which^they came with 
the tin pan full of oysters, which he proceeded to divide 
equally among his four half shells. When the shells were 
full, he sifted the balance of his ship-biscuit over them, 
and placed them in front of the fire. 

"Scolloped oysters, by the moustache of Soyer ! Doc- 
tor, you're a genius," said Jackson. 

Lou Jackson made the cofi*ee by boihng the water in 
the tin coffee-pot, and then tying up a sufiicient quantity 
of ground coffee in a canvas bag, placed the bag in the 
pot which was kept simmering over the coals. Mike 
had cut several slices of venison, and laying them across 
two iron ramrods as a substitute for a gridiron, was caro 



suppEK. 255 

fully watching them cook, from time to time giving the 
ducks a, twist, that made them revolve on their gallows 
like martyrs suffering two of the extreme penalties of the 
law at one time. Jackson set up the snipe as sentinels 
around one side of the fire, and the iron pot was hung 
over the coals, and in it was placed bits of bears' meat and 
venison, the breast of cranes, pieces of ship-biscuit, and 
all the little odds and ends of game, which, being fit for 
nothing else, seem especially intended for making a stew. 
To this was added a wild pepper or two, and some green 
leaves and roots that the negroes had gathered, and 
every time the water bubbled a savory smell issued forth 
that mad > one entertain a more lenient opinion of Esau, 
in spite of the thousands of years of misjudgment that 
have been visited upon him. And lastly, as a crowning 
honor to the meal, a pumpkin was produced; a real 
golden pumpkin, with its honest ochre face wrinkled 
into lines of swelling rotundity, and suggesting the rows 
of rustling corn, among which it had obtained its ple- 
thoric shape. The boys had brought it from the planta- 
tion in the boat, and though some might say " there is an 
article that wiJl bother these imj^rovising cooks," it was 
hailed with exclamations of delight and welcome. A 
plug was cut in its upper side, where the stalk joined the 
fruit, and when the piece was taken out it formed a 
cover to the interior cavity, to which the short stalk 
answered for a handle. The seeds were carefully 
removed from the interior, and in their place was poured 
as much heavy brown sugar as would fill the cavity, 



256 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

when the cover was restored to its place, and the em- 
blem of plenty was seated in front of the coals, where 
his jocmid face reflected the bright flames, and the smi- 
mering viands that were cooking beside him with a 
pleasant glow, like that which shines on the countenance 
of an old patriarch, when do^vn the Christmas table peer 
the bright eyes of long lines of merry grand-children. 
The turkey-hen had been in the meanwhile transfixed on 
a stake, with its maw crammed with chestnuts, and was 
clucking out its despite against its warm roost, vaporing 
out its savory humors, while Rose was squatted behind 
it, screening her face from the fire with one hand and 
basting the bird with the other as the fire blistered its 
tender skin. 

" Now for the omelette !" exclaimed the Doctor, turn- 
ing away from a long survey of the various articles of 
food that girdled the fire ; "bring me the eggs, 
Sam." 

Sam approached vdih a grin on his face, and his hat 
full of soft shell turtle eggs that had been procured from 
the sand. 

" You'd better roast them in the hot sand instead of 
trymg to make omelette," I suggested. 

" Or boil them m the stew," said Jackson. 

" jSTo, gentlemen, an omelette soufflee I have decided 
upon. If you want some in the stew I can spare you six ; 
they will be as hard as bullets by the time the stew is 
done ; but I must have an omelette ; I am really suffer- 
ing for an omelette ; and he began breaking open the 



suppEK. 257 

little round eggs in one of the tin cups, singing all the 
while, with a merry tone — 

" Who can help loving the land that has taught us 
Six hundred and eighty-five ways to cook eggs." 

When they were all broken he set one of the men at 
work to beat them up with a bundle of switches, and 
turned his attention to tastmg the stew, that was being 
seasoned from the contents of the mess-box, and tasted 
by all the persons who expected to eat therefrom. Each 
one gave his opinion, and each one was finally satisfied ; 
the Doctor threw in six turtle eggs for my satisfaction, 
and allowed an additional pod of red pepper for Jack- 
son's decided taste for spices, while a fox squirrel, that is 
a dry kind of gymnast for cooking alone, was quartered, 
and thrown in to complete the mess. 

" Round about the caldron go, 
In the poisoa'd entrails throw ; 
Double, double, toil and trouble," 

began the Doctor in a declaiuiing voice. 

" Hold your tongue, destroyer of appetites !" called 
out Lou Jackson ; " don't mix bad ideas with the stew ; 
that is worse than putting in tough meat." 

" Poetry, ma'am, is never out of j^lace," answered the 
Doctor, gesticulating with the forked stick with which he 
was stu-ring the stew. "Poetry is salt to life's omelette; 
poetry is the poor man's gold — the cofi*ee to a dinner. 
— ^You Sam, twist the ducks ; don't you see they've 



258 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

stopped ? — ^Poetry ma'm, is suggestive of dinner and din- 
ner of poetry, for 

" When the oldest cask is opened, 

And the brightest lamp is lit, 
When the chestnuts glow in the embers, 

And the kid turns on the spit ; 
Then then the story is told, 

And the rhyme so bold " 

" Doctor, your pates are burning." 

" Dear me, what a miserable operation I You Sam, 
why didn't you see that coal snap ?" 

" Didn't like fur to stop maussa's speech." 

" Ha ! ha !" laughed Jackson, " you had better get tho 
plates ready, Scip ; where are the plates ?" 

" All here, sah," said Scipio, bringing in a dozen or 
more pieces of white birch bark neatly rounded and 
smoothed Avith the knife ; and behind him came Csesar 
with the tin cups all brightly scoured. Some of the men 
had reared a wooden table when we first came to the 
island ; this unusual luxury for a camp was elevated about 
two feet from the ground, and formed a convenient cen- 
tre for the family that sat around on the sand where 
fancy dictated. The plates were arranged on the table, 
one to each guest, and a pile in store for other courses, 
for it was a thing unknown in this camp of plenty 
to use a plate the second time. 

" Turn the pumpkin, some one ; don't you see it 
browning." 



SUPPEE. 259 

The Doctor paused while measuring a handful of 
sugar for his omelette to see the cooking progress. Rose 
basted the turkey, ejaculating from time to time, "Gi, 
he hot." Mike sat like a. Turk on liis crossed legs, gra- 
dually withdrawing the venison steak from the heat, and 
Jackson, who never gave himself much concern about 
the dinners, stood overlooking the coffee-pot. It was a 
pleasant dinner in cooking, and when it was announced 
by universal acclaim that it was done, we all felt that we 
had earned our appetites. 

First came out the fish from his hot bed, a black steam- 
ing mass, that bore more resemblance to a sacred croco- 
dile embalmed in the pyramids than to an article of food ; 
but as one by one the wrappings of wet rags and leaves 
were removed, bringing with them the skin and scales, 
and his fishiness was gently rolled over on a piece of 
clean hollow birch bark and placed on the table, white, 
flaky, and steaming hot, a universal ha! fi-om the con- 
vives heralded the .success of our first course. To talk 
of boiled fish, where half of the peculiar flavor of a 
trout is left in the water, or sole au grathi that is 
smothered in sauce and mushrooms, is a mark of grati- 
tude for past enjoyments and the dinners we have eaten 
at Mackinaw or at Magny's, but if the nostril has ever 
inhaled the pure steam, the condensed just liberated 
essence of a cold water fish, baked in the ashes, or the 
tongue ever moistened under the first pure morsel that 
entered the mouth, he ^vill forget those artificial combina- 
tions that have hitherto deceived him, and believe only in 



260 WILD SP0ET8 IN THE SOUTH. 

the simplest cooking as the best. The fish was soon dis- 
posed of, and Mike handed over his venison steak, hot 
and rare, just cooked enough to make it tender. 

" Ah ! Mike, you rascal, it's not the cooking that 
makes that venison so tender; you have had the selec- 
tion of the whole deer," said Jackson. 

" Would you have me take the heels ?" asked Mike, 
sarcastically. 

And thereupon there arose a great discussion between 
them as to the safest cut from a deer, as Jackson had 
some of the old yeoman's ideas of venery, and Mike was 
in no wise a stranger to this, one of the most considered 
arts of woodcraft. 

"Hi, dogs!" called Lou, as the hounds crowded 
around her for the scraps of venison that we had not 
eaten, and licked the hand that fed them. " Down, Jip ! 
back, Boz ! back Lady ! Bring the turkey. Rose." 

" And the bar," said Mike, tossing his wooden platter 
into the fire and taking another. 

"And the oysters," said the Doctor. 

" And some corn bread," said another. 

" Ho ! for a boar's head and a flagon of wine, and we 
Y/ould make a royal carouse !" cried Jackson. 

" Were we kings, we Avould not have hunter's appe- 
tites," said I. 

" And might have the gout," intimated the Doctor. 

The turkey was placed on the table, flanked by the 
piece of bear's meat, and between them the oysters, and 
iny brochets of liver. The corn-bread, brown and smok- 



SUPPEE. 261 

ing, was broken up and piled on the board. And, finally, 
the tin pan, the only tin pan in the company, was half 
filled with the savory stew, and j)nt under the Doctor's 
nose, to his evident satisfaction, and his face broadened in 
spite of himself, as the delicate fragrance of venison, eggs, 
bird, and bear's fat, mingled with chestnuts and savory 
herbs, ascended to his nostrils. 

Hunting-knives were applied with vigor, and, after a 
short interval of busy silence, uiere was nothing left on 
the board but a portion of Bruin's carcass, the stew, and 
one half of the turkey-hen, and these would have 
stood but little chance, had not there been the remem- 
brance of the ducks and snipe that were still by the fire, 
not cooking, but just smiling, as the Doctor expressed 
it. The stew had been pronounced good, but not as 
good as it will be to-morrow morning, for a stew is like 
wine, and improves by keeping, and a gentle cooking, 
oft repeated, makes it more grateful still. 

"!N"ow, Doctor, -I think the time has come for the 
game," said I ; " don't you ?" 

" I do. Let the game be served," said he, with a wave 
of his hand. 

" You will have to serve it yourself, then," replied Lou. 
" Rose is eating among the men ; just hear them laugh !" 

The loud, clear notes of the other party sounded from 
the farther side of the fire, Avhere tliey were discoursing 
huge pieces of venison and bear's meat with a series of 
cachinnations that resembled the morning rejoicings of a 
gang of turkeys. 



^Q2 WILD SPOSTS m THE SOUTH. 

*' You Rose ! the coffee !" shouted Lou ; but the girl 
did not hear, and Lou had to bring the coffee herself, 
with the Doctor and Mike bearing the ducks and the 
snii3e. The birds were laid out in state on bark platters, 
and the coffee, after first removing the bag of grounds, 
was carefully poured out in equal portions, in the five tin 
cups that ornamented the table. 

^N'ow, there are variou§ kinds of wild ducks, and with- 
out referring one to the natural histories, under the head 
of Aves, the reader to count the varieties need only to 
recall to his recollection the various sensations received 
from eating them. Sometimes they have been tough — 
leathery tough, these were the Old-wives ; it is generally 
only the young wives that buy them; others there are 
that taste hke mackerel, these are the fishy ducks ; others 
that are dry, like corned beef, these are Pharoah's lean 
kine ; others again that are just duck, and nothing more, 
you would hardly suspect them, under their stufiing of 
acrid sage and rancid onion, to be duck — if you saw their 
feet, you might be positive; these were the common 
wild duck, peppered with shot, jammed in crates, putre- 
fied by time, and bought by hotel-keepers and noodles ; 
when cooked, they are anything you choose to name 
them. 

Another kind of duck, like those the Doctor was put- 
ting on the table, is a young, fat wild duck, either a 
Wood-duck, Teal, or Black-duck, and, as such, is peer to 
any game that ever feasted a hunter. It was nested in 
a tussock of grass, on some of the sedgy shores of the 



SUPPER. 263 

great northern rivers, and there it lived on seed and 
succulent grasses, and when it made its first migration 
southward, it stopped at the wild rice fields that fringe 
the shores of the big lakes, at Sodus, on Sandusky Bay, 
the Thousand Islands, or the morasses of the Calumet 
River, in Indiana, and then for a day or so at the celery 
beds of the Chesapeake and Delaware, and then on the 
rice-fields of the Carolina or Georgia planter. It is so con- 
ditioned that its breast is flat, and its back is white with 
underlying fat, and by the color of its feet you can say it 
is its first winter out. Treat such a duck gently, cook him 
as you would roast an apple, and with no more sauce, and 
when he is done, not crisped like a roast pig, but gently 
done, bear him away from the fire tenderly as you would 
a baby, carry him lovingly as the Doctor carried the two 
that we had cooked, and flank him with nothinjr dis- 
cordant and gross, but with some game bird, and nothing 
better than an English snipe, and then thank the Lord 
who giveth us our meat in due season, for never since 
man had dominion over the fowls of the air has there 
been cooked a daintier dish. 

Two ducks and five snipe would probably be to five 
persons the same inconvenient animal that a goose is said 
to be to one — too much for that one, and not enough for 
two ; but then when the day has been spent in hunting 
in the open air, it is another matter — so we j)ronounced 
the ducks the best ever killed in Florida, and ate them 
all. 

" But what of the omelette ?" I hear you ask. 



264: WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

Oh! ah! yes. The omelette was not what was pro- 
perly expected of a dish prepared with such flaming an- 
nouncement ; either from receiving too much sugar, or 
from some want of lightness on the part of the parent 
turtle, or from some dissipating effect of just a few drops 
of brandy, to give it an essence, that the head cook con- 
fessed to have put in it, or from some other unexj^lained 
reason, the omelette never souflled, but remained per- 
versely dense ; it might better have been called an 07ne- 
lette au plomh. Lou Jackson suggested that the heat 
had so far generated the young turtles that their shells 
made it tough. Others insinuated that the brandy ap- 
propriated for the omelette had been perverted from its 
use by the Doctor, and therefore the omelette grew 
downhearted. But it was no great loss, after all. We 
concluded we had eaten enough without it, and gave it 
up with a sly laugh at the Doctor. 

As the dinner progressed it had become dark, and now 
only the blazing fire lighted the foliage and the rippling 
beach, and only the faint call of the raccoon in the woods 
answered the heron and the duck in the marsh, and 
gradually we sank down to our usual places, talking in 
a low tone, and casting remarks back into memory, and 
away into the future, now telling a tale, now half singing 
a song, until we dropped asleep. 

" But what of the pumpkin ?" I hear you ask. 

Oh ! that we kept for the next day. 



HOME AGAIN". 265 



CHAPTER XYII 

HOME AGAIN. 

" Be thy intent wicked or charitable, 

Thou comest in such a questionable shape 

That I -will speak to thee." 

Hamlet. 

If the reader will leave for a short time his hunting 
acquaintances of the Key, and visit another contemporary 
camp, he can see, in fancy's eye, one of the chief men 
that, at the date of our story, controlled the destiny of 
the Floridas. 

Halleck Tustenuggee was a Mickasukie chief of much 
repute, as well for his bravery and endurance as for his 
complete knowledge of the resources of his native land, 
his eloquence and his cunning in all the wiles of Indian 
diplomacy. Being born of the Mickasukies, the origmal 
OT^Tiers of the soil, and being related by marriage to the 
principal men of the tribe, he possessed a wide influence 
that was sustained by his strength and manliness of per- 
son. Gaily colored quills were plaited in the long black 
hair that fell from the crown of the head, and his costume 
was more uniform than that of the savages of the northern 
tribes, and resembled the hunting-shiit of the frontier 
hunter. He was six feet two inches in height, and 

12 



266 ♦ WILD SPOETS nr the south. 

slightly made, with a sullen, stolid face, that seemed in 
repose to be without intelligence, but which brightened 
into intensity when animated. Halleck Tustenuggee's 
favorite camp was located on the upper waters of the 
Ouithlacouchee Kiver, on a live-oak island that reared 
itself the only stable land amid leagues of morass. Here 
were erected neatly thatched cabins, and store-houses of 
food and ammunition, and here, guarded by the solitude, 
the quicksand, the tortuous lagoons, and the scaly reptiles 
of the swamj), were always to be found a merry company 
of little swarthy imps that played in the grass, and sober 
women that sat all the while with their blankets wrapped 
around them, as still as the dead monks in the Piazza 
Borgonona. 

No white man, it might be said without a word of 
exaggeration, had ever seen this island ; therefore, a per- 
fect descrij)tion cannot reasonably be required, and any 
criticism on the description, as given, will lack proof to 
make it effective. The buzzard alone, from his slow 
circles in the zenith, had marked the camp smoke, under 
the long-hanging moss. Only the panther, from the 
labyrmth of the magnolias, or the alligator under the 
fallen trees, heard the children's laugh, or the squaw's 
song to her swart pappoose. So the stores of maize and 
powder were never burned by the enemy, and the dried 
and wrinkled scalps that hung to the tent-poles, some by 
their silken tresses and some by their short grey curls, 
continued to smoke and dry in the fire-light and the sun- 
shine, unreclaimed and unavenged. 



HOME AGAIN. 267 

To explain the unconquerable aversion that has always 
existed between the white man and the Indian on the 
North American continent, needs the description of 
many aggressions and revenges that each has inflicted 
on the most susceptible feelings of the other. The white 
man has colonized the land of the savage by suffrance, 
and then by reason of the necessity of his position, kept 
them by force. By superior foresight he has bought their 
peltry at trivial prices. He has imported infectious dis- 
eases, has corrupted with alcoholic drinks, has cut down 
preserves of game, has amassed wealth, and power, and 
space, while his simpler-minded neighbor has been stunted 
under his shadow. All this happens even when the rela- 
tions of the two races are amicable, and treaties are 
observed with fidelity, and the aborigine knows that, as 
the white man prospers he must decrease — that the white 
man's life is the red man's death. But the outward peace 
in a little while disappears. Some settlers' cattle have dis- 
appeared from the woods, and the Indian is cljarged with 
the theft ; the charge is probably true. Some brave, in 
visiting the settlement, has been intoxicated, and killed 
or maimed a white man, who has insulted him. The law 
claims a compensation. The law is made by the white 
man, who regards the Indian with contempt and dislike, 
and the compensation is graded by his judgment, and not 
by the meagre wealth of the Indian. Retaliation follows 
the distraining ; a foray avenges the retaliation ; then a 
burning village and the scalping-knife brightens the 
night, and brings on. a campaign that for years converts 



268 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

the border into a debatable ground, like the Valley of 
the Shadow of Death. The white settler, at a distance 
from relief, and guarding his cabin only by force of arms, 
regards the sullen, wary, crouching foe with a bitter 
hatred that he bestows on no other enemy, and his hatred 
is handed from father to child, and perj)etuated by tradi- 
tion and song, and many a vacant place by the fireside. 
The chieftain looks back over a life of battles that were 
always disastrous to him, and that has left his tribe a 
handful of broken men, and recalls the peace that was 
more injurious than war, the worthless bargains, hollow 
promises, poisonous gifts, discordant counsels, mock cere- 
monies, and cloaked hatred. 

Little wonder is it, then, that when some chiefs of 
shrewder foresight than others come to power among 
the Indian tribes, they form combinations, recount their 
wrongs, and, urged on by the national enthusiasm, make 
one bitter burst for revenge and immortality ! Such a 
chief was Halleck Tustenuggee, and such was the history 
of his jDcople ; and the settlers on the Gulf and the ver- 
dant bottoms of the Suwanee remember his last charge, 
so unexpected and so bloody, as the fishermen of the 
Mexican Gulf remember the tornadoes that come out 
from the south in the middle of the summer afternoon, 
and go wailing and wrecking all that was basking in the 
tropical stillness. 

Tustenuggee had consulted with all the divisions of the 
Seminoles. Runners had come and gone, some in canoes 
and some on foot, to all the different outlying parties. 



HOME AGAIN. 269 

The women had been removed to the recesses of the 
swamps, extra quantities of lead and powder had been 
l)urchased, a census had been made of all the white 
inhabitants residing on the debatable land, and the 
forces had been appointed so many braves to each de- 
partment ; at the same time, no change in the demeanor 
of the red men marked their determination ; they came 
and went the same as before, and bartered and hunted 
without a word of mistrust or dishke. The very day had 
been fixed, and the hour ; and that night, while the laugh 
was so loud by the camp-fire at Bonda Key, and while 
soothed by the murmurs of the sea, we passed away to 
the land of dreams, the red eye of Indian warfare was 
on us all the while, and we knew it not. While we 
were cooking and eating our meal, and when we laid 
down to sleep, a tawny figure was turning its basilisk 
face toward us from a clump of thickly clustered 
trees that grew some fifty yards from our tents. It 
could not be seen in the shadows, and the land breeze 
that blew from us to it prevented the dogs smelling it, 
and giving indications of its presence. No motion 
attested weariness, no sound betokened its cat-like arrival. 
It was the skeleton at the feast. 

As the morning warmed the east, the figure melted 
away with the wan colors of the sky, and when Mike left 
the camp to loiter around, for his usual morning walk, he 
found the dew disturbed on the grass, and following the 
slight trail, he carried it to the edge of a bayou, where 
he noticed the rushes were divided as though they had 



270 WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 

been bent by some body passing through. As he 
watched them carefully they still arose, closing more and 
more of the opening, and regaining their erect posi- 
tion, showing that whatever had disturbed them, had 
but just departed. The hunter surveyed the whole bay 
and the opening bayous with a careful eye, and then fol- 
lowed back the trail to the clump of trees where the scout 
had spent the night, and examined the place carefully. 
He then made several casts around the camp, each one of 
greater circuit, examinmg as he went every indication of 
the presence, during the night, of any other person, and 
finally returned with his measured tread, and took his 
accustomed place by the fire. 

From the survey he had made, he knew there was but 
one Indian on the island; he knew by the track, the 
new footmarks overlapping old ones, that the Indian had 
come and gone in the same direction. He knew that he 
was there to watch the hunting party, and for no other 
reason ; and by the matted grass in the thorn bushes he 
knew that he had passed the most of the night in the 
same place. It was no straggler, for he had an object; 
no hunter, for he was without dog or comrade. What- 
ever Mike's reflections were, he kept them secret, and 
smiled at Lou's jests and chatted as quietly with the Doc- 
tor, while he superintended the loading of the boats for 
the return trip, as though he had not left the camp. 

The tents were struck and packed, our few skins and 
trophies were stowed away in the canoes, and when we 
had finished a hearfy breakfast, and Rose had cooked 



HOME AGAIN. 271 

sufficient venison and corn-bread to answer for our din- 
ner, Ave embarked and started once again for Far 
Away. 

Mike had given directions at starting as to the course 
we were to take, and himself led the way. This was not 
the same route we had taken in coming, but deflected 
very much to the southward. Soon the island on which 
we had passed so many pleasant days, was blue in the 
distance, and I emded the pelicans that were sitting on 
its sandy point, careless denizens of a happy land, to 
whom time brought no necessity for change, and who 
only migrated at their pleasure ; until a headland of 
water-oaks shut out my isola-bella, and the boats wound 
in among a group of islands that hid us from any view 
but those of the shores that immediately surrounded us. 
Mike's canoe, that led the way, paused for a moment, 
and as we rode abreast he spoke to Jackson, who was 
with his daughter and the Doctor, and asked them to 
row on slowly with the other boats through the channel 
that opened ahead, and await his coming in the first 
broad piece of water they came to. The boats all 
passed on, but Mike, who was paddling alone with Scipio, 
immediately turned back and ran ashore on the low 
island that had shut out our view of Bonda Key. Land- 
ing on the beach, he bade Scipio wait, while he crossed 
over the narrow point of the island, and standing 
among the heavy moss that reached down from the 
trees, narrowly scanned the open water beyond. Bon- 
da Key exposed its full length of blue ; beyond wero 



272 WILD SPORTS IN" THE SOUTH. 

Other lesser sandy keys blinking in the sunshine ; nearer, 
the low tangled islands upreared their winter verdure, 
save when the magnolias or j^ines interpersed their green 
domes, or the gaudy creepers blotched them with scarlet. 
Long flocks of ducks crept along the horizon, or swam in 
nearer clumps ; but it was for none of these the hunter 
^v•dB watching. At length from behind an island, that 
had momentarily hid the view, a canoe, impelled by a 
single paddler, glided over the water, apparently making 
for the place where the hunter stood. Mike returned to 
his canoe, and j^addled to the point of the island where 
an old tree, undermined by the water, had fallen over 
with its load of vines and moss, and then pulled his boat 
under its shelter until it was completely invisible from 
any spot but the water in front. The canoe that was 
approaching from beyond soon reached the end of the 
island, on the side opposite to the one where Mike was 
concealed, and a young Seminole stepped to the shore, 
and crouching on one knee, cautiously peered around 
the pomt. A moment's survey satisfied him, and return- 
ing to his canoe he paddled on as rapidly as before, and 
turning the point of the island continued his course down 
the channel where our boats had passed, and where 
Mike lay concealed. He was dressed in buckskin 
breeches and moccasins ; a belt supported a heavy hunt- 
ing knife, while the upper part of his body was com- 
pletely naked. His head was bare, and a daub of scarlet 
paint ornamented each cheek and either breast. His 
blanket lay beside Imn, and with his eye fixed on the 



HOME AGAIN. 273 

winding channel ahead, he was paddling rapidly past, 
when Mike, with a muscular push against the overhang- 
ing tree, shot out into the lagoon so far that the two 
canoes floated almost side by side. In spite of his train- 
ing and his stoic blood, the Indian was startled, evincing 
his surprise by a quick motion and an aspirated ejacula- 
tion, as his hand involuntarily laid hold of his gun. 
Scipio was paddling the canoe, and Mike's rifle was 
lying across his knee, while with an appearance of most 
simple assurance, the hunter said : 

" Good morning, brother, were you looking for 
me?" 

" No — yes " — replied the Indian, too much taken by 
surprise to collect his thoughts immediately; "I saw 
canoes ahead, and I like company." 

" My brother been to the Keys hunting ?" continued 
Mike. 

The Indian answered by a nod of assent, a gesture that 
he hoped, the hunter would believe. 

" And is now going up the river again ?" 

" Yes," replied the Indian, willing to favor the fii'st 
supposition. 

"Then we go together," said Mike, propelling his 
canoe a little forward in the direction the Indian was 
going. 

" Yes, but I am tired with much rowing, I will not 
keep you back," answered the savage, evasively. 

The boats now lay side by side, and Mike, with his 
rifle in his hand, deliberately stepped from his own canoe 
12* 



274 • WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

to that of the savage, saying, as he did so, " Ingin Mike 
will help his brother paddle his boat if he is tired." 

A keen glance and an impatient look proclaimed how 
much the Seminole was averse to this polite offer. His 
eye roved around the bayou as though expecting some 
treachery, and then rested on Scipio's face and his mus- 
ket that lay beside him. There seemed to be no help 
for him, and if he had any suspicion as to Mike's inten- 
tions, he could not confirm them from anything he saw in 
the sun-browned face that confronted him. His hand 
left his gun, and the ill-assorted couple commenced pad- 
dhng down the lagoon, while Scii^io followed behind, his 
white teeth glistening as he laughed at intervals a 
low laugh, with a chorus of words and pectoral 
chuckles. 

The surprise of our party was most unqualified as the 
strange boat paddled out from the winding lagoon to the 
open water, and took its place in the rear of the little 
squadron. The negroes eyes opened with a language of 
ejaculation that was louder than words, and Jackson 
eyed it as a mallard drake would stare at a cormorant 
who should dare to sail in among his brood. IS'othing, 
however, was said of our visitor, though from front to 
rear were passed many covert jokes at his expense. 
We kept on our course industriously, and by noon 
were all in the mouth of the river, and stopped for our 
lunch and a little rest on an island, the smallest of a 
group of three, that lay side by side. Jackson wanted 
to stop at a larger island that we had just passed, but 



HOME AGAIN. 275 

Mike said that a little island, with good company, was 
better than a large one Avith bad company, and so we 
complied with his wishes, though not knowing what he 
meant. 

The unportant feature in our lunch was the pumpkin 
that had been cooking all the previous night, and that 
had been carefully carried in Jackson's canoe. As Rose 
brought it up from the boat on her head, the Doctor 
smiled, I laughed, and Lou looked eagerly forward, as a 
child looks at an unopened Christmas box. 

"Take off the cover of Pandora's Box, Lou," said the 
Doctor. 

" It won't come off, it's glued fast," said Lou, tugging 
at the stem. 

*' Give me a chance," said Jackson, aiming a blow at 
it with his hunting-knife, which did not produce any 
impression on the shining surface. 

At length by the aid of a hatchet, it was split opeii, 
and the interior revealed itself to our admiring eyes. 
The pumpkin had baked soft, and imbibed the sugar 
melted by the heat, and candied in irregular shaj^es, like 
the interior of a crystallized rock hung with brilliants. 
The steam was pendent from the sides in drops, and a 
breath of sweets exhaled when opened that carried one's 
mind back to the dinner-basket of childhood, and as each 
one of the party jDossessed himself of a piece, and sat 
munching away, we must have looked like so many mon- 
keys regaling themselves in a melon patch. I becamo 
poetical and repeated Whittier's lines. 



276 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

"Oh fruit of loved boyhood! the old days recalling 

When wood grapes were purpling, and brown nuts were falling, 
When wild ugly faces we carved in its skin 

Glaring out through the dark, with a candle within." 

Jackson became disgusted with the rhyming. 

An hour's rest and we were agaui on our course, Mike 
all the while in the Indian's canoe, and leading the van. 
The wild fowl were numerous along the river, though we 
did not stop to shoot, partly because we were loaded with 
game and partly because Mike had requested us not, 
though he would give no reason, briefly saying, in reply 
to our questions, " It's a leetle better to travel fast and 
hunt slow than it is to travel slow and hunt fast." Large 
flocks of ducks were all the while being driven ahead of 
the boats, flying short distances each time they got uip. 
Flamingoes and cormorants were winding from point to 
point, and knee-deep in the tide great blue herons waded, 
and snow-white cranes dressed their plumage. As vista 
after vista opened around the bends of the river, or up 
the lateral lagoons, new forms and colors opened to the 
eye. There the stately cypress trees stood in the water, 
like the pillars of a rustic Venice, and the mound-like 
cones their roots threw up extended all across the basin ; 
while above, the swinging vine had caught its tendrils in 
the opposite tree, and thus back and forth festooned a 
Yojul 2:>orte-cocMre to nature's mansion. On the other 
side, a fallen tree shut in an open passage and formed 
foothold for brier and creeper, and vines that aspired to 
the highest pinnacles of the forest and bowed the trees 



HOME AGAUSr. 277 

with their passionate embrace. The lunge of the alliga- 
tor, the cry of the bittern as he rose from the reeds, the 
scream of the fish-hawk, circling in the air, and chasing 
the tern, seemed fitting music for so strange a scene, and 
soothed and interested the mind, while the low song the 
oarsmen sung did not disturb the ^dld inhabitants of the 
air, or mar the unity of the scene. 

The river grew familiar, and Lou Jackson recognized 
remembered trees and openings, and soon we saw ahead 
of us the bluff that marked the landing at Far Away, and 
then the logs that formed the rustic wharf, and then the 
seat under the oaks, and then we landed once again on 
familiar ground ; and leaving the boys to " tote the plun- 
der," wound our way up the hill toward the house, Jack- 
son taking the lead. The young Indian seemed to have 
made up his mind to accompany us, if not pleasantly, at 
least without any manifest reluctance, though I noticed 
Mike was always by his side. 

As we mounted the hill I looked for the flock of sheep 
that usually fed on the bluff, but they were not there, 
though in a moment we passed one of the wethers dead 
by the side of the path. Before I could remark upon 
this, I heard a cry ahead from Jackson, and hastening 
forward we saw the cabin was not there, but a pile of 
of ashes that w^as drifting hither and yon by the wind, 
and a column of smoke, that ascended from the ruins, 
marked the place where it stood. The sheds were 
burned, and the sheep pen. The little kitchen, where so 
many pleasant dinners had been cooked, was gone. 



278 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

There was no voice or sound, no neigh of horses or bark 
of dogs, or bleat of sheep. The only li\'ing thing there, 
was a group of buzzards that, heavily gorged, flitted up 
on the stones that formed the chimney. Looking to 
where they arose we saw a naked body, half-eaten and 
scalped. It was Aunty Blase, the old cook. Her eyes 
were j3rotruding, her bare teeth were grinning at the 
spectator, and by her peeled skull, we knew who had 
been the visitors at Far Away. 

After the first cry of horror that escaped Jackson's 
lips he turned around to Mike, and his eyes fell on the 
Indian prisoner, who had taken advantage of the sur- 
prise of the party to gHde away among the trees. 

"Hound of hell!" shouted Jackson, "I know your 
work," and he levelled his rifle at the Indian, who was 
bounding away down the glade. A mocking cry 
answered the shot, and the spy disappeared in the woods. 

" After him !" called Jackson, startmg in pursuit. 

" Hold thar, hard !" exclaimed Mike, springing after 
the planter and taking him by the shoulder. " You'll 
lose your own har in thar and won't git his'n. Besides, 
I'm of the 'pinion that the sooner we get m fightin' trim, 
the better for us. Them sarpents has made a clean 
sweep and thar is nothin' more for 'em to do here ; and 
so I reckon they've gone arter us to the Keys." 

Mike spoke earnestly, and Jackson stopped and 
returned to the rest of the party that by this time had 
collected together by the ruins. The negroes were 
moaning and making a noisy lamentation over the 



HOME AGAIN. 279 

remains of Aunty Blase, rocking themselves to and fro, 
and throwing their hands up and down. The Doctor 
was examining the wound on the poor old negress with a 
professional eye. It was the first time he had ever had 
the opportunity to see this style of dissection, and Lou 
Jackson sat down on a log and wept as if her heart would 
break. Aunty Blase had been a friend of many years to 
her, and had baked the cakes at the feasts that yearly 
honored her birth, and many a time had slyly cooked 
favorite dishes for her young mistress. It was no wonder 
then that Lou felt as though she had lost an o^nt in 
reality, and not merely a dependent. 

A short consultation was had. Mike detailed the fact 
that the young Indian that had accompanied them back 
had been watching their camp last night, and stated 
his behef that he was there for the purpose of informing 
his tribe of our movements and of our return, in order 
that they might be prepared to surprise us, either at the 
camp or on our w^ay back ; that his unexpected caj)ture 
had frustrated the plan, or delayed it, and that there 
was no time to be lost in getting into a more open coun- 
try, if it should appear, as he suspected, that there was a 
general rising of the savages along the coast. The rea- 
sonmg was so correct that it was immediately adopted. 
A shallow grave, hastily dug, preserved the remains of 
the old cook from the buzzards, and a short survey and 
a " huUoo " satisfied us that the few other people that 
had been left behind had been carried off by the savages, 
and then with the goods we brought home, we hurried 



280 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

back to the boats, and iii a few minutes were speed- 
ing down the river. No song of oarsmen now ; no 
laugh or jest ; it was the hurried exodus from impending 
fate, " and the boldest held his breath for a time." 

Tustenuggee the Mickasukie chief, now commanding a 
band of the Seminoles, at the time of the return of Jack- 
son's family, was lymg with his men m one of the little 
elevations that raise themselves from the swamps, on the 
upper shore of the Ouithlacouchee, where he had retired 
after the sack of the plantation house, to wait for the 
return of those whose unexpected absence had deprived 
him of half his revenge. Among the spoils he had car- 
ried away from the last night's sacking was a case of 
spirits that had created a debauch in the savage band, 
and from the chief to the youngest warrior, they had all 
succumbed to its influence, and passed the day in alter- 
nate riot and stupor. But when the scout who had been 
sent down the river to watch the hunters, and whose 
fleetness of foot had saved him from Jackson's vengeance, 
arrived and told of the return of the party, the chief was 
immediately aroused, and shaking off his sluggishness, 
hastened to take such steps as were necessary to secure 
his prey. Runners were sent out, some to the site of the 
despoiled house, some to the river, and some to the 
country lymg north of the river, and through which the 
settler's family would necessarily have to travel, if it 
sought to escape by land to the upper settlements, that 
at this time were but sparsely settled, in the direction of 
Pensacola. 



HOME AGAIN. 281 

Hardly had the different scouts been sent on their 
errand before one came hurrying back with the Avord that 
the boats were descending the river again, and, hke a 
j)ack of dogs on a fresh scent, the whole band hurried 
down to where a j^oint ran out into the river. They 
leaped from root to root, and crossed the marsh where a 
hare would have floundered m the mud ; they swung 
themselves, by hanging vines, over deep pools of black 
water, and their tawny bodies as lithe as the copper-head 
snakes that slid from the logs they trod on, appeared and 
disajDpeared through the tangled woods until they at 
length reached the -point of land around which the boats 
were sweeping, impelled by four oars each, and keeping 
well out in the river. Tustenuggee w^atched the flotilla 
commg with an eye that would have transfixed a lonely 
ti'aveller, so much had it grown and brightened by excite- 
ment. He knew his prey was escaping, for it would be 
a long shot to those canoes, and no matter how strong 
his own force, he would be unwilling to hazard an open 
attack on sixteen men as accustomed to the rifle as those 
before Mm, and one of those Ingin Mike, whose prowess 
all knew and feared. The Indians were careful not to be 
seen from the boats, and crouched down behind any 
cover they could find, hoping that some of the canoes 
might approach near enough to afibrd them a shot. But 
Mike, who led the fugitive fleet, Avas too wary for 
that, but inclined the boats away from a pomt that he 
was conscious might afford a cover to a foe, and nearer 
the low timber that, growing in the water, would form 



2^82 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

but a poor footing for an ambuscade. The negroes bent 
to their oars, and the boats skimmed fast, making the 
curve in beautiful order, and had entirely passed the 
point, when the shrill report of a dozen guns sounded on 
the stillness of the forest, and the water near the boats 
was spattered by the bullets. Then followed the tremu- 
lous, fierce, prolonged war whoop, and as it died away, 
Mike's tauntmg answer, with a gesture of derision, came 
back. Two or three of the savages had not fired with 
the rest of the band, but had reserved their shots for a 
better opportunity. The opportunity came as the last 
boat, steered by Jackson himself, swept down with the 
tide. He had seen the futility of the preceding discharge, 
and regarding the boats as entirely out of range of the 
guns, had rather cut the segment of the semicircle than 
followed its outer curve. As he came opposite the point 
two guns were discharged almost simultaneously, and at 
the report Jackson dropped his steering-oar, and raised 
his hand to his side. 

A taunting cry was echoed from the shore, and a num- 
ber of the Indians ran out as far as they might come, 
mocking the fugitives, and delighted at the apparent 
effect of their shot. Jackson raised himself up, stagger- 
ing, and attempted to bring his rifle to his shoulder, but 
could not ; he spoke to Lem, his favorite servant, who 
put his arm around him, obedient to his master's com- 
mand. 

" Way enough, boys," he called out in a low voice. 

The men paused on their oars, Jackson's lips com- 



HOME AGAIN. 283 

pressed as the rifle came to his cheek, and at the sharp 
report, one of the two Indians from whom the last shots 
came, tossed his arms in the air and fell from the bank 
where he was standing with a splash into the stream and 
swirled oiF with the black water. 

*' Ha ! ha ! ye black devils," laughed Jackson, sinking 
down in the bottom of the canoe from the arms of the 
boy that was holding him. 

" Oh, maussa ! you hurt ; dear maussa, speak, maussa !" 
cried Lem, kneeling over the planter, and unbuttoning 
his vest. 

The wounded man looked fixedly, and a guttural noise 
came from his chest at every breath and a perspiration 
dampened his iron grey locks. The boat, unheeded, 
turned and drifted with the tide, and Mike's canoe, in 
which Lou Jackson was riding, seeing something wrong, 
waited till we came up to them. 

" Father," said Lou, as the canoes swung together, 
speakuig in a low, hurried voice, " I am here, your 
daughter, Lou." 

Jackson did not speak, though he looked shoreward 
with a wandering eye. 

"Dear Father! God is good; he will not do this! 
speak to me, say it is not so !" 

Jackson's lips moved, we listened, and low and faint, 
we heard a nursery prayer : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep," 

and then some words indicating that he was thinking of 



284 WILD SPOETS m the south. 

home and the garden walks. The stern heart was re-» 
tracmg hfe's steps agam ; it saw its childhood's home on 
the Altamaha, it heard its mother's lullaby, the evening 
prayer, it felt the good-night kiss, and smiled. The 
dangers around were forgotten, the war whoop that was 
sounding mockmgly along the shore was unheard, Jack- 
son had retraced hve's voyage to its source, and was 
home again. 

"We all saw the relaxation of muscle that followed the 
last hesitating word, and knew its meaning. Lou sunk 
back mto her boat vacantly — listlessly staring, without a 
word or a tear. The negroes wailed a low cadence of 
sorrow gazing on their master with streaming eyes. 

" Wall, he's only got the start of us by a piece, it's a 
few days airlier or later ; but them dogs don't get his 
hair — that's a comfort ; and may be it'll do him good to 
hear my rifle crack, if he hain't gone far yet — it used 
to make him smile." And saying this, Mike levelled his 
piece at one of the savages on the shore, who were 
watching, in groups, our movements. 

At the crack of the heavy piece, that carried a ball 
further than any gun on the coast, an Indian in one of the 
groups shivered, but by holding on to a branch above 
him he saved himself from falling, though we all saw he 
was wounded. Mike put his hands to his mouth and 
gave the war whoop, but neither the ring of the rifle nor 
the wild cry of battle awoke the dead, and obeying the 
dictates of prudence we resumed our oars and hurried 
out of the river for the more open channels of the islands. 



THE BUEIAL. 285 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THiy BUEIAL. 

" They truly mourn who 
Mourn without a witness.' 



Baron. 



Death is a great truth-teller. He throws ns back on 
our littleness, and makes us turn about, feelmg for pro- 
tection, or staring for explanation of his mysteries. We 
see ourselves divested of reputation, of wealth, and the 
million little circumstances and forms that clothe us, and 
in his presence we stand naked to our own eyes. There 
is nothing m us different from the dead clod beside us, 
that a moment before was one of us, and that a moment 
hence we may be. We speak short, and only what we 
mean; we act fairly, and not for any appearance; we 
feel the stirring warnings that are of our spirit, and that 
are taunting our million cares for the flesh, mocking its 
littleness and its flickering termination. 

In social life, the love of self and dread of others is not 
shaken ofl" even at the grave. We bury our dead man 
with pomp and proper etiquette. There are invitations, 
and crape dresses, hearse, bells, monuments, criticism, 
and seclusion from society; even in our death we are 
worldly, draping the dead truth and its morals with Hv 



286 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

ing fictions and fashions. In the woods death is more 
direct in api^roach, and you less able to shun his com- 
pany. There is no art to help the stricken, no luxury for 
the languid, no shrive for the dying. When the des- 
troyer has left his mark on your comrade and gone again, 
the open eyes gaze at you, the stiff body is in your arms ; 
no one speaks of it, or over it ; it preaches in mute lan- 
guage for itself; there is no hearse, no mourners, no 
newspaper article, no sexton, no rites; you and your 
friend are alone together — he is dead, and you are Hving. 
Prithee, hunter ! pray for yourself, for you know the files 
will crawl in and out your nostril to-morrow as they do 
in his to-day. 

The night had well set in as we again caught sight of 
the low outline of our camping-ground, after the hurried 
flight from the river with our sorroT\^ul burden. We 
lay oft' in the open water until Mike had made an ex- 
amination of the land to see that there had been no one 
there after our departure, and when we saw his fire-light 
signal we rowed to the beach and disembarked. The 
negroes spoke in whispers, the boats were half un- 
loaded, the guns carefully examined, and lay ready for 
use ; the very hounds felt the blow that had fallen, and 
crept listlessly to the fire, and laid down wondering, all 
save poor old Duke. Duke was a sterling dog, though 
somewhat aged ; his bed for years had been his master's 
couch, his platter his master's hand ; and now he kept by 
the blanket that was spread over the stern of one of the 
canoes, and licked a white hand that fell from beneath, 



THE BUEIAL. 287 

and at intervals half whimpered, as does a hound when 
dreaming of the chase. 

Before establishing ourselves for the night, we made 
a thorough examination of the island, and j^osted one of 
the men on the upjoer end, to act as sentinel in case any 
canoes were seen, as they would necessarily have to ap- 
proach from that way. Then one tent w^as raised for 
Lou, the smoldering fire was rekindled, being first 
sheltered from observation by the tent, and by a screen 
of bushes, and we addressed ourselves to sleep, though 
this was done more to encourage the men to take some 
rest than from any desire on the part of the others for for- 
getfulness. Some lay down, and soon were oblivious of 
all earthly Troubles; others dozed, and started, and 
mused by turns ; only Lem, of all the negroes, seemed 
to keep fully awake, and his low moanings were pitiable 
to hear. The night was perfectly still, and the same 
familiar cries came from the marsh that we had so often 
listened to ; but now they had a mocking sound. The 
*' stars dreamed their path through the sky," and with 
the waning moon made a thin light that seemed cold 
and ghostly, and a mist arose from the sea — the sure pre- 
cursor of a storm. 

Mike presently left the camp, and walked down by 
the beach, and the Doctor and I followed him, 
for the purpose of talking, and arranging some plan 
for the morrow. 

"Well, Mike, what are we to do with Jackson ?" said 
the Doctor, after we had taken a long look at each other. 



288 WILD SPORTS m the south. 

" Thar aren't but one home for him now ; but what's 
to be done with his darter ?" 

" Take her with us," said the Doctor. 

" Where shall we take ourselves to ?" I asked. 

No one answered, and each looked at Mike as the 
surest adviser. The hunter sat himself down on the sand 
cross-legged, in the Indian fashion, and, after a pause, 
said : 

"It's clair we aren't wanted hereabout, and it's mighty 
onsafe for the young woman. Thar has been a risin' of 
the Injins everywhere, and the only safe place for a 
crowd as big as our own is in the boats. The Injins 
wun't fight us by day ; it's only when they ketch us on 
the sly, fur they know they aren't a matcn for honest 
folks, no how. Ef it warn't fur this ere young woman, 
and Rose, and the boys, we might lay around and rub 
out some of those varmints, and like enough get back 
some of the people they stole from the house. But it's a 
mighty onsafe game to play, with a handful of niggers 
to bother one, and I reckon we'd best make tracks." 

" But where shall we turn to ?" asked the Doctor, 
looking around him. 

"Well, ef we go north, it aren't a great way to 
Lorenzo's clearing, but I kind o' think Lorenzo has lost 
his hayar night 'fore last, with the rest on 'em. The 
surest place would be Tampa Bay; thar we'd have the 
Fort, and from thar Lou Jackson could pass up to where 
she would." 

*' Poor girl ! poor girl !" said the^ Doctor. " What ia 



THE BUEIAL. 289 

to become of her ? She seems very calm ; I was afraid 
she wouhl feel it more. She has not shed a tear or made 
a sob since it happened." 

" A hound don't yowl much when he's hard hurt," ro 
plied Mike. 

"What of the body, Mike?" I asked. "We must 
bury it some time, and where." 

" Them sarpents won't let it stay buried long ; they 
want his hayar." 

"You don't mean to say they would despoil his grave 
for his scalp ?" 

" I mean they are 'bout among the islands, nosing us 
out this minute like wolves." 

" Oh, Mike !" said the Doctor, looking around anx- 
iously. 

" 'Taint likely they'll find us to-night, though they 
know pretty much where we be ; but their spies'll be in 
all the passes at light to see where we go, and what we 
take ^\'ith us, and they'll dog us to Tampa, and ef they 
can't get our hayar, they'll try to get his'n. We can't 
carry him four days' journey to the fort." 

" We could bury him in the sea," said the Doctor, 
" and there he would remain undisturbed." 

" His darter wouldn't give in to that," said Mike. 

" How do you know ?" 

" Wall, I reckon." 

" Then how can we bury him, and when ?" 

" The sooner the better," I replied. " Bring him hero 
to-night — 'twould be least suspected." 

13 



290 WILD SP0ET8 m THE SOUTH. 

" And how hide the grave ?" 

" Build the fire over it," said Mike. 

And so it was agreed that the burial should be made 
in the night, and that the party should leave before 
light should expose their motions to the enemy. I was 
deputed to acquaint Lou Jackson with the plan, and to 
obtain her approval. I found her in her tent, that opened 
to the fire, half lying and half sitting against a roll of 
blankets. Her eyes were shut, and she seemed asleep, 
but when spoken to she answered without moving. I told 
her of our plans for the morrow. She answered in a low 
distinct tone, that it was all very well. I spoke of 
her father, and that it was necessary to have a burial so 
secretly as to preserve the grave from the knowledge of 
the enemy. She consented by a single word of assent 
in the same composed manner. I then spoke of its being 
done immediately, and asked her if she was willing. She 
turned in her habitual manner, as though deferring the 
question to some one beside her ; it was her manner 
of asking her father, that had always in the family been 
regarded as a question, and answered by Jackson without 
a word. Then as if recalling to her mind that there was 
no one to respond, she looked around vacantly with 
a troubled look, pronouncing the name of Mike. 

" Yes, child," said the hunter, bending his frame to 
the entrance of the low tent, and replying to the unasked 
question, " that's best." 

"Very well," she said; and seeing her indisposed to 
talk, I left the tent. 



THE BUEIAL. 291 

In a few minutes the fire was removed from the spot 
where it had been burning for so many days, and the pile 
of ashes pushed aside. Then with sharp sticks for mat- 
tocks, and paddles for shovels, in a little while we dug a 
grave in the sandy soil. Four men took the canoe, cov- 
ered with the blanket, and guarded by Duke, and 
carried it up by the grave. The fire waned and flickered 
and the moon was nearly set. The heavy gaily-colored 
Indian blanket was wrapped around the dead man, and 
his hands were folded, " as though praying, dumbly, over 
his breast." Nothing was said, but the plaintive moans 
of the negroes and Lem's wailing cry were the only 
sounds of sorrow. Lou looked on with eyes wide star- 
ing and followed every motion of the attendants, but 
no word or gesture escaped her. The body was then 
laid in the grave, and then followed a pause ; so silently we 
stood, the very air in the trees seemed noisy, and the 
negroes ceased their lamentations and crowded round 
Duke, who stood at the head of the grave, looking sadly 
in, while his long ears touched the ground. We looked 
one at the other for a sign, and the dead man looked up 
at us from the grave. "Where now is the prayer of the 
living, and the hope for the hereafter ? 

The Doctor spoke with a voice so low, that but for the 
silence we could not have heard it : " Dust to dust, ashes 
to ashes." Then, as if seeking words to continue the 
service he could not remember, he broke forth in that 
great confession : " I believe in one God, the Father 
Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, in Jesus Christ, 



292 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

3iis only Son, our Lord." His voice, that was faltering, 
grew strong, the tears that were raining o'er his cheeks 
grew dry, and the triumph of his voice, as he proclaimed 
the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, was 
like the march of a triumphal chorus, to which all res- 
ponded. Amen ! 

Mike stepped into the grave and turned down the 
blanket over the face of his friend, our host and our com- 
rade, and laid beside him his hunting-knife and rifle — a 
kindly care he had learned from his Indian habits — and 
then the grave was filled up, all the dirt was carefully 
placed back, or thrown in the sea, the ashes drawn to 
their place, and the fire re-kindled. The boats were 
reloaded, a piece of canvas was stretched on poles to 
imitate a tent, and one canoe that we did not need was 
left in plain sight on the beach, with a log or two half in 
the water to represent the others. This ruse was done to 
attract and occupy the attention of the Indians, who would 
be searching for us the next day, and who would thus 
be drawn away, for a time, from our real course. There 
lacked about two hours to daylight when we took to the 
boats and called away the dogs. They all came but 
Duke, who still sat by the fire, until one of the negroes 
carried him to the boat and placed him m ; but as 
we started he jumped out and ran back to the spot 
where he had seen his master buried. The negro 
went back again, but the dog resisted and set up one of 
those long plaintive howls for which the true deer-hound 
is so remarkable, and which echoed from shore to shore 



THE BUEIAL. 293 

like the call of a bugle. Lou was sitting in the boat, but 
at the sound of the dog's voice she sprang out, and run- 
ning back to the hound, threw herself down on the sand 
with her arms around his neck, and broke out convulsively- 
sobbing. It was the first tear she had shed since her 
father's death, and the torrent restrained was the more 
powerful. 

" Oh ! Missus ! Jesus help us !" moaned Rose, sway- 
ing her head from side to side. 

Mike rose up in his boat 2ftid looking seaward, brushed 
his hand across his cheek, saying : " Thar aint no show 
of light yit awhile." 

In a little while Lou came back to the boat, leading 
Duke by the ear, and having taken her place with the 
Doctor, the boats glided off into the darkness and the 
mist, and using only the paddles, passed like phantoms 
out of sight. 

All that night we rowed, and the next day, and avail- 
ing ourselves of the smallest of the open islands for rest- 
ing places, avoided surprise. 

Whether the Indians ever followed us I know not, or 
whether they ever found the grave of the recluse planter 
by the sea. I never again visited the island, and the 
craft and ceaseless vigilance of our guide carried us 
safely amid the dangers by storm and warfare that con- 
stantly surrounded us during the four days that were 
occupied in getting to Tampa Bay. The scenery we 
sailed along was beautiful, and from time to time we 
would stop to beat up an island for necessary game, but 



294 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

the memory of the grave under our camp-fire, and the 
ever-present sorrow of Lou and her attached slaves, so 
abode with us that it did not seem a pleasure trip. Mike 
was the same regular, patient, watchful man. His eye 
saw everything, and a motion or a word directed atten- 
tion to all that was curious. His boat was constantly 
by the side of the one in which Lou Jackson was riding, 
and his voice and manner were singularly low and gentle, 
when conversing with her, for so rude and wild a figure. 
Lou was very quiet, and at night her eyes would be con- 
stantly wet with tears, but it was an uncomplaining 
sorrow to which man can add no solace, and which is 
only bettered by that forgetfulness that the Creator in 
his kindness has permitted to come over the heart of 
man to heal even his "deep stabbed woe." In the 
destruction of Far Away, Lou Jackson had lost nearly 
all the property of every kind that she owned. Of the 
twelve negro men that had accompanied us on the hunt, 
six only were the property of her father and six had been 
hired, and would now have to be returned to their owner 
at Pensacola. Lem and Rose, together with five men, 
would accompany their young mistress and return from 
Tampa Bay to St. Augustine, where her father's relatives 
resided, by the first vessel that could be found. This was 
the meagre plan that she had laid out for herself, as we 
sailed down the coast. At length we made the point of 
Egmont Island, and entering the broad bay saw once 
more the American flag, and stepped ashore in security 
under the guns of the Fort. 



INDIAN HISTORY. 985 



CHAPTER XIX. 

INDIAN HISTORY. 

True they have vices — such are nature's growth 
But only the barbarian's — we have both." 



Byron. 



When Florida was ceded by Spain to the United 
States, in the year 1821, it was inhabited by several 
powerful tribes of the natives. The Seminoles, residing 
in the Alachua country, in the centre of the peninsula, 
were a branch of the Creek Indians, whose villages mar- 
gined the Chattahoochee River, near Columbus, in Geor- 
gia, and the name of Seminole, or Runaway^ originated 
with a secession of this branch, which occurred at a 
remote period. Micanoi)y was their principal chief. The 
TaUahassees inhabited the northern and western por- 
tion of the peninsula, their chief town being at Tallahas- 
see, the present capital of the State. Thlock-lo-Tustenug- 
gee, or Tiger Tail, was their head chief. 

The Mickasukie tribe, under Ar-pe-ik, or Sam Jones, 
and subsequently under an eminent warrior, Halleck 
Tustenuggee, had their hunting-grounds on the waters of 
the Ouithlacouchee, and the heavy swamps that border 
it. 

South of Lake Okechobee another tribe found a secure 



296 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

home in the fastnesses of the - everglades. They were 
called Spanish Lidians, and their chief was named Che- 
Idka. 

The Creeks of Georgia came down to assist their kms- 
men in the wars that ensued, and were led by Octiarche, 
and subsequently by that chief whose name has added so 
much to the romance and dignity of the Indian charac- 
ter, Osceola. The whole number of Indians in Florida 
at this time Avas estimated at from fifteen hundred to as 
many thousands. To this was to be added an equal num- 
ber of negro fugitives from the slave States or the chil- 
dren of free Spanish negroes, all of whom w^ere livmg 
with and adopting the habits of the Indians. So wide 
the extent of country over which they roamed, and so 
inaccessible their villages, that even the existence of 
some tribes was unknown until after many years of war- 
fare. The tribes were diiferent from each other in 
government and location, and some of them were hostile 
to the others. 

After the cession of the province by the Spanish, the 
United States immediately sought to control the haughty 
nations that peopled the newly acquired territory, many 
of which had never been subject to Spam, and to induce 
them to cede their lands and delegate their government 
to the Government of the United States, upon the con- 
dition of protection and alliance. To this end three Com- 
missioners were appomted by the United States, at Fort 
Moultrie, near St. Augustine, in Sept., 1823, who caused 
thirty-five of the prmcipal men of the northern tribes to 



INDIAN HISTORY. 297 

sign with their marks a treaty, denominated the treaty 
of Fort Moultrie. The first article of this treaty stated 
that themselves and their tribes have appealed to the 
humanity, and thrown themselves on the protection of the 
United States, *' and do cede all claim to the whole ter- 
ritory of Florida." The United States Government, in 
its turn, agreed to pay six thousand dollars in goods, and 
an annual payment of five thousand dollars. 

Immediately upon the execution of this agreement, 
settlers, poured in and commenced cultivating the lands 
relinquished by the Indians, and many quarrels as to the 
intrusion and the rights of person and property arose 
between these two classes, so antagonistical in every ele- 
ment of character. 

This difference of feelmg led the United States 
Government to propose, and carry into effect, in May, 
1832, a conditional treaty known as the Payne's Landing 
Treaty, signed by seventeen chiefs, whereby the Semi- 
nole Indians agreed to emigrate to the territory of 
Arkansas, west of the Mississippi River, providing they 
should be satisfied with the country, after first sending 
some of their chiefs to examine the land, and to give up 
to the claimants the negroes said to have escaped. Seven 
chiefs accordingly went, and in March of the following 
year, at Fort Gibson in Arkansas, the seven chiefs ratified 
the Payne's Landing Treaty, and without first making a 
report to their tribes, made the original treaty irrevoca- 
ble. 

No sooner, however, had the delegation returned and 
13* 



298 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

it was told to the different tribes of Florida that they 
had entered into an agreement to remove, than they, 
without dissent, repudiated the treaty, refused to relin- 
quish their native land, or surrender their negro allies. 
They haughtily answered the different runners and Indian 
agents, commissioned by the whites, and withdrawing to 
their villages in the Cypress Swamps and hummocks, 
prepared to defend their homes as best they might, 
according to the ancient hereditary rules and regulations 
of Indian warfare. At a council summoned by General 
Thompson, when Micanopy, Cooacoochee, Alligator, and 
other chiefs of high renown were present, Osceola, who 
was then a young chief, being called upon to answer if 
he would sign the treaties, strode up to the table in front 
of the officers, saying, " The only way I will sign such a 
treaty is this," and drove his scalping-knife through the 
parchment deep into the table, while the conference 
broke up in confusion. The call to arms sounded through 
the land, the Indians pillaged the settler to obtain mili- 
tary weapons, and burned his cabins, drove ofi" the cattle, 
and waylaid the soldiers, and the United States Govern- 
ment threw her best armies into the country, to have 
them destroyed by the miasma and the Indian arrow, 
patiently renewing the losses in the regiments, and sup- 
plying millions of money for a period of over fifteen 
years. The amplest supplies were afforded for th^ pro- 
secution of the war, and the first soldiers in the country 
such as Generals Jackson, Clinch, Scott, "Worth, and 
Taylor, led the armies. 



INDIAN HISTORY. 299 

This was the condition of Florida when in the latter 
part of the winter of 1840 and 1841 we found ourselves 
involuntary prisoners at Fort Brooke. 

A low octagon fortress, with a palisade in closure of 
sharpened timbers, situated at the end of Tampa Bay, 
and that formed the headquarters of the American army 
through the many discouraging years of the Seminole 
war. The temperate climate of the coast, and the com- 
manding and safe position of the fortress, made it a plea- 
sant and safe residence amid the miasma and disorders of 
the interior country. It was also the depot for military 
stores, the arsenal for ammunition, and the harbor for the 
gun-boats. Civilized and savage warfare here displayed 
their pomp and coloring in close relief. The jpainted 
savage, with his wives, camped daily by the walls, or 
traded with the sutler ; the Indian runners, who alone 
could thread the inner wilderness, came and went to dis- 
tant outposts ; and the little brown canoe of the savage, 
so thin in texture that a pin could pierce it, and so light 
in mold it left no wake in the water, floated side by side 
in the ripples with the heavy gunboat of the soldier, 
that some day was destined to rake and crush to pieces 
its slighter opponent — fit emblems both of the power 
and feebleness, of the people of which they were res- 
pectively the types. 

Fort Brooke often contained within its casemented 
walls other and greater contrasts, and more stirring emo- 
tions than the material landscape and pageantry of war 
and race. Here came the young recruit, emulous of 



300 WILD SPOETS m THE SOUTH. 

fame, with armor newly diglit, and hither returned from 
the cypress swamp or pathless everglade the soldier 
whose brief campaign sent him home womided, wasted, 
broken, with his weapons untarnished, save by the rust, 
and his glory unmade, except by his sufierings. Here 
fled for shelter the settler's family from then* burning 
home, the shipwrecked sailor from pursuing storms, and 
here the haughty chieftain came with his armed band, 
wrapped in his wrought mantle and his stoic dignity, to 
treat for peace or vindicate his race ; or the captured 
warriors in their damp prison shivered on the prison ships 
in sight of the warm life of their native forests. Here 
" talks " were had with the tribes, treaties signed, ex- 
peditions fitted out, forays revenged, and the barbaric 
life of the woods mingled and flov>^ed side by side with 
the chaster forms of civilization, as the Oswegatchie 
pushes its black current into the blue waters of the St. 
Lawrence, and mottles the flood with its curious con- 
trast. 

The Avar that had been waghig for over ten years 
through the length and breadth of the peninsula was ap- 
parently no nearer its termination than at any previous 
period. Small bands of Indians had been captured at 
different times, always by some ruse, and not by open 
warfare, and exported by ships to the far West. Several 
noted chiefs had been slain in defending their homes, and 
many villages and corn-fields been laid waste, but braver 
warriors seemed to take the j^lace of the old ones, and 
new retreats had been found in the most inaccessible 



INDIAN HISTOEY. 301 

swamps, wherein the Indian woman might nurse her 
babe and till her corn-fields, while the braves revenged' 
their losses by some foray so distant, unexpected, and 
bloody, as to countervail all rules of warfare, and render 
useless all prevention, and impossible all redress. This 
was not one perpetual war, but a succession of wars, 
separated by treaties and truces more or less long, and 
more or less faithfully kept. During these truces, 
sutlers, relying on the promises of the United States 
Government, made settlements in the territory, and with 
the fearlessness and temerity of the American borderer, 
pushed their outermost farms within the lines of the 
Indian territory. Sometimes, under favor of a particu- 
lar Indian chief or band, they were protected for years, 
and remained safe while others were massacred. But at 
length some wrong done to their people would so excite 
the Indians that no individual favor could be a protection, 
and the outposts of the settlers were Avhelmed in flame 
and blood. 

Far Away had been an instance of this kind of reliance 
upon this most uncertain estate, and its existence had 
been prolonged by the hospitality of the planter ; but 
courtesy could not avail in the hour of general retribu- 
tion, and the revenge bred by years of accumulating 
wrongs swept over the homestead like a spring freshet. 

In a few days after our arrival, a government vessel, 
sailing by way of Key West for St. Augustine, offered 
Lou Jackson a passage, with her peoj^le, which she 
accepted, and departed, carrying Duke with her, and 



302 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

leaving Mike, Poke, and myself, again to our own re- 
sources, awaiting some opportunity for tlie indulgence 
of our roving propensities. But roving propensities were 
now only to be indulged under military escort, or else at 
the risk of our hayr^ as the hunters pronounced it ; so 
for the first few weeks we contented ourselves with the 
curious scenes that were daily transpiring in the inclosure 
of the fort, or the most limited walks directly around the 
pickets. Occasionally some scout would come in with 
the report of a soldier, or a runner, lying dead on some 
of the routes, and a guard of soldiers would be sent out 
to bring in the body, and give it a burial in the little 
burying-ground that was located just beyond the picket. 
The sight of the revolting exhibition of Indian warfare, 
however, soon passed by, and we forgot the terror that 
environed us in our desire for activity, and the enjoyment 
of the sports of the chase and the observations of the 
varied beauties of animal and vegetable life so prolifically 
developed. 

Is it strange that, when the morning reveille of bugle 
and drum awoke the loud gobble of the wild turkeys not 
yet flown from their roosts on the cottonwood trees on 
Hillsboro' River, we could not resist the call, but would 
occasionally steal out with our rifles, "jist to clair out 
our shootm' irons," as Mike said. Day by day these 
little excursions extended themselves, and we became so 
accustomed to the danger, that, like the villagers that 
build on the slopes of Vesuvius, we had forgotten the 
fires beneath. 



A BEAR m DIFFICULTY. 303 



CHAPTER XX. 



A BEAR IN DIFFICULTY. 



" Snout. Bottom ! thou art changed : what do I see on thee? 
JBot. What do you see? you see an ass's head of your own, do you?" 

Midsummer-night's Dream. 

One morning Mike and I left the fort in our canoes, 
with Scipio and Caesar, to look for some game on the 
islands that were scattered along the beach in the many 
indentures of the bay to the southward of the fort. An 
hour or two of paddling brought us where a low island 
was fringed with the tangled roots of the black man- 
gi'ove. This peculiar tree frequents the salt-water shores, 
•and springs up from a multitude of roots that raise the 
trunk of the tree from the ground. The pendent 
branches then droop until they touch the water beneath, 
where, clasped by oysters and other parasite shell-fish, 
they are anchored to the earth, and, taking root, send 
up many shoots that thus ramify and interlace like minia- 
ture banyan trees. A large portion of the peninsula of 
Florida is fringed by this hardy hedge of vegetation. 
Behind a border of this kind we saw the towering 
forms of some gumbo-limbo trees, and the oval leaves of 
the sea-grape, and, finding an open place wherein to 



304- WILD SPOETS m THE SOUTH. 

conceal our boat, landed and commenced to hunt down 
the island. 

It Avas early morning, and the dew was still on the 
grass, and the mocking-bii'd had not yet finished his 
matinal song. 

" There's a dog's track," I said to Mike, directing his 
attention to some footprints fairly marked on the sand ; 
" there may be some Indians camping here." 

" 'No " said Mike, following the tracks with his eye for 
a moment ; " a wolf." 

" How do you tell ?" 

(^ A wolf's got two long fore toes on each foot, Jd'ye 
see ?" pomting to the mark on a piece of clay soil, where 
the animal had leaped over a pool of water, leaving a 
deep scratch on each side that showed plainly the forma- 
tion of his foot ; he's gone sometime in the night ; they 
are great travellers, they be, and like enough he's now 
on Topolika River." 

A little creek ran into the island, containing about an 
inch of water at low tide, but into which, with the 
flood tide, fish Avere accustomed to feed, and the shores 
of this inlet, at its narrowest part, were strewed with the 
heads and tails of small fish, such as the young of bass 
and redfish, while the whole shore was tracked with the 
prints of some animal. We stopped before the signs, 
and Scipio, his natural instincts fully alive, exclaimed : 

" Gi ! dere be shocks ob coons here o' nights fishin'." 

A closer examination satisfied me that such was the 
case, and that some raccoons were in the habit of repair- 



A BEAR IN DIFFICULTY. 305 

ing here when the tide was ebbmg, and headmg off 
the fish that had ascended the stream, to seize them on 
their return to the sea. Scipio and Caesar consulted long 
over the marks, with an air of much importance, and 
then informed us that such was " de fac'." • Moreover, ' 
Scipio assured me that he had seen, on moonlight nights, 
raccoons engaged in these industrious pursuits, and 
standing knee-deep in the retiring tide, using their broad 
fore paws for hands, scooj) out the fish, and throw them 
far up on the beach, while a fellow-fisher of the same 
family, wading down the creek from above, with splash 
and squeal, would drive the frightened denizens of 
the brook into the very paws of their cunniug foe. 
Cajsar indorsed the same story, which I would readily 
believe from the nature of the animal, but which I can- 
not think that Scip and CaBsar ever had the forbearance 
to watch, while they had the means of pouncing on the 
raccoons. 

Not far from the creek lay a hollow log that Scii^io 
judged might be the resort of liis friends, the raccoons, 
and, trimmmg a willow stick for a probe, after one or 
two careful examinations into the different knot-holes, he 
began a vigorous series of punches, while Caesar stood at 
the end with a club elevated to knock over the prize. 
Instead of a raccoon, to our great amusement, out slid a 
huge rattlesnake, disturbed in his morning nap, and 
shakmg his tail with a whirring sound, like the wing of 
a quail when rising. Over went Caesar in his haste to get 
away from liis dangerous prize, exclaiming, as he ran : 



306 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

" Gorry mighty brcss us ! what for you call ee coon ? 
you purty nigger, dun know snake far coon!" 

There wore no signs of deer on the island, though 
quantities of birds of every description, that roosted in 
the mangrove bushes, and resorted to the pools and the 
beeches of the island for food, and made the bushes laugh 
with their various notes. The Key West pigeon was 
here, with its burnished colors, and the ground dove, 
with its plaintive note ; the oriole gleamed in the willows 
like sunrise, and the mocking-bird so peopled the bowers 
with his many-tuned throat that the stranger would be- 
lieve a hundred voices were singing at once. When, 
through vistas of the mangroves, we caught sight of the 
sea, the porpoise was rolling in pursuit of the fish 
on the bar, while the pelican and cormorant were follow- 
ing his motions in revolving circles high in the air. All 
created things, in their multitude of ways, were fulfilling 
their destiny, and each grade of life, by the other fed, 
ran its appointed round to make its part in the measured 
whole of that great cycle of animal life, of which man 
knows but a few members, and whose rules of revolution 
seem to his dull vision to be the mere instinct of appetite. 

" Bar !" said Mike, interrupting my reflections. 

"Where?" said I. 

" Smell him." 

"Nonsense!" 

"Yah! ha! ha! ha!" said Cassar, tugging at lihe 
leathern leash by which he held Mike's hound ; " Yowler 
smell him, too !" 



A BEAK IN DIFFICULTY. 307 

Mike took the strap in his hands, and we silently fol- 
lowed the lead of the dog. In a moment we passed a 
tree that had been stripped of its bark for a distance of 
five feet from the ground, and the bark scattered all 
about, while the hard inner wood of the tree was all fur- 
rowed by the nails of the animal. 

" An old He," said Mike. 

" How do you know that ?" 

" The she ones are 'bout havin' young, and are hid in 
the big swamps," replied Mike ; "and he's a fat one ; see, 
his hind toe marks don't touch his front ones. If he'd 
been a rael lean one, they'd a well-nigh overlapped." 

The marks we saw soon led us to. the edge of the 
bushes, and then out on the open sands. We followed 
carefully until a roll of sand affording a cover for us, we 
crawled up behind it, and carefully concealing our heads 
behind bunches of grass that grew scattered about the 
summit, beheld our game in the undisturbed pursuit of 
his morning avocations. The surf was rolling in, and 
there were many thmgs lying about on the sands that 
had been stranded by a recent storm : here a tortoise- 
shell, and there a cocoanut, and further on a board, and 
some fragments of a vessel. Bruin was busy inspecting 
these flotsam that had drifted into his domain, and his 
manner of doing so was as follows : He would first look 
at the article, then smell it, then touch it with his fore 
paw, and then he would deliberately seat himself in the 
sand on his broad posteriors, with his hind legs project- 
ing in front, and his toes turned up, and, lifting the arti- 



308 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

cle under consideration to his mouth, turn his head on 
one side, and try to crack it with his teeth. The inde- 
scribable air of burlesque gravity with which this was 
done made me laugh. Added to the individual awkward- 
ness of the animal was the fact of our unsuspected obser- 
vation, and the scene appeared doubly ridiculous ; and 
when the negroes chuckled aloud, the bear would only 
discontinue his investigations for a moment to take a sur- 
vey, and then renew them again. The cocoanut he found 
too hard to bite, and so, after rolling it over two or three 
times, threw it into the sea again. Then he examined a 
large tortoise-shell, and putting his claws in the side, with 
his arms a-kuubo,.pryed it open, to find it empty. Next 
he picked up an orange, and sitting down, as before, ate it 
with evident satisfaction, his fore paws resting durmg the 
time of his mastication on the toes of his hmd paws. 
Occasionally he would reach around and scratch himself 
in the same manner as a negro, whom he laughably resem- 
bled in very many of his manners. 

Presently he discovered a small cask, and after apply- 
ing his nose to the bunghole to scent the character of its 
contents set to work to arrive at the interior. But 
the half-barrel was strongly coopered, and in spite of 
bites, and boxes, and hugs without number, it remained 
intact, though an oily juice ran from the bunghole and 
smeared Bruin's paws, who eagerly licked them dry. 
At length, by a good deal of biting, he enlarged the 
bunghole so that he could get a paw in, and by this 
means fished out the sweets, holding the cask up with 



A BEAR IN" DIFFIOtlLTY. 300 

one arm, and dropping the other into it, and then into 
his mouth, like a Uttle negro on a molasses barrel. But 
this mode of getting at the contents did not seem suffi- 
ciently expeditious to Little Tommy Horner, who, pre- 
sently getting up on his feet, inserted his nose in the bar- 
rel, and then his head. Now a bear's nose is very sharp, 
and goes through a small place very easily, but does not 
have the same iacility for coming out, OAvmg to the hair 
and ears being set backward, and the heavy folds of skin 
that hang around the neck. In this mstance Bruin made 
the discovery of this difference, and, like the weasel in 
the flour barrel, soon gave symptoms that he was fast. 
He began to pull back, but as he pulled the barrel came 
with him, until he rolled over on his back, pawing ineffec- 
tually with his hands at the convex sides of the barrel, 
which revolved around his head as on a pivot, but* would 
not come off. Mike smiled out aloud, and the negro 
yelled with laughter. The bear, hearing the sound of 
our voices, probably increased by the reverberations in 
the hollow barrel, took fright and ran for the woods, 
makmg du'ectly to where we were lying, and carry- 
ing the cask on his head like a hehnet. We could not 
have shot at that half-barrel, even had we been able to 
fire our guns, which we were not, from laughter, and 
therefore scattered right and left as the animal rushed up 
the hill ; as he crossed the conical peak he lost his foot- 
hold, and rolled head over heels in our midst. Then picking 
himself up, he started in the direction he happened to be 
Avhen he regained his feet, and ran directly into the sea. 



310 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

This turned him about again, when Yowler, who had 
escaped from the negroes, seized him by a leg and forced 
him to halt. At this he reared himself on end, and com- 
menced growling and waving his paws all the time, 
resembling more a picture of Bacchus than a wild ani- 
mal. We ran down to where he was standing, when 
Scipio, with a blow of a club over the head, broke the 
barrel, scattering the mackerel with which it was filled, 
and released the animal from his confinement, who re- 
warded the negro with a blow from his paw that knocked 
him on the sands, when Mike and I, with a simultaneous 
discharge of our rifles, laid him lifeless. This was a very- 
large bear, and from the abundant mast still hanging in 
the woods, and from the quantity of shell-fish on the 
island, was very fat. We brought our canoe round to 
the beach, and in a few hours were again with our trophy 
safely back to the fort. 



HOW WE CONQUERED HALLECK TUSTENUGGEE. 311 



CHAPTER XXI. 

HOW WE CONQUERED HALLECK TUSTENUGGEE. 

" but quoth he, 

' It -was a famous victory.' " 

The winter had passed away and spring had come, 
opening the pyramid of silver tulip-flowers of the pal- 
metto royal (the yucca gloriosa of the naturalist), while 
we were watching a chance to leave Tampa Bay. One 
day the commanding officer detailed a company of men 
to cross over the peninsula to the forts on the other side 
for the purpose of keeping open the communication, and 
learning the situation of the enemy, as well as of the 
troops operating in the interior. 

"We accepted the chance, and the next day found us 
with our packs slung on a mule, two canoes for ferrying 
across rivers, and a company of about forty men winding 
through the .pine lands that lie east of the bay. There 
had been an old trail cut through here, marked by blazes 
on the trees in the open woods and here and there a log 
felled bridge-like across the creeks that intersected the 
swamps ; but the trail was only useful as a guide, although 
it is marked on the charts of that day as a military 
road. 



312 WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

The dear-bought experieuce of the American troops 
had not been profitless, and the company we were with 
was as Arell organized as it Avas possible to be. The men 
were frontiersmen, quick in the use of the rifle, unterri- 
fied by the appalling sights and sounds of Indian war- 
fare and — what was of vital importance — accustomed to 
the country, and skilled in woodcraft. They could sup- 
port themselves, if need be, in a swamp, or build a town 
there without foreign assistance. The rules adopted for 
crossing the country were as follows : No more baggage 
to each man than was absolutely necessary, and this bag- 
gage to consist only of food and ammunition ; each man 
to carry his own share. One guide Avas placed ahead of 
the detachment about three hundred yards ; within 
sight of him and of the column, another. These men 
were the most experienced of the hunters, and generally 
one a friendly Indian. To their knowledge of the geo- 
graphy of the country the party was indebted for the 
directness of its route, to their quick eye for its security 
from ambush, and to their observation of every passing 
footstep on the land, marks of j^addles on the shallow 
bottom of rivers, or the shmy projecting logs, its acquain- 
tance with the movements of outlying parties of Indians, 
or the recent passage of friend or foe. How small these 
signs might be, and yet be detected, how blind and yet 
be read, is one of those mysteries of the woods that are 
,<^sclosed only to the observant and the practised. Their 
very description excites incredulity. The passage of one 
yf these scouting parties through the Indian country Avas 



now WE CONQUERED HALLECK TUSTENUGGEE. 313 

a curious scene, and impressed one mth a feeling of awe. 
The old tokens by the way, here a ford named after some 
bloody massacre, and there a little log j^en whitened by 
the bones of those who fell there at bay together, hemmed 
in by the pursuing savage, were so frequent and well- 
remembered, that the soldier crossed the woods with a 
ceaseless watchfulness. He travelled all day with his 
utmost speed, lest his j^ursuers might come up on his 
trail, and at night lay down in the darkness without his 
fire, that his covert might not be disclosed. The celerity 
of the passage was the safety of the party. 

Thus we crossed over to Fort Fraser, on the Hitchi- 
pucksasi, and two days more brought us to Fort Gardi- 
ner, on the ford of the river that connects two of the 
largest of the lakes of central Florida, Lake Kississimee 
and Lake Tohopekaliga. These forts were nothing more 
than heavy cabins built of logs, and defended by pali- 
sades, sometimes garrisoned by a company of men, and 
sometimes only houses of refuge. The one last named 
was in the margin of the cypress swamps, and was one of 
those huge shallow tarns, whose black waters, encumbered 
by logs and cypress knees, and encroaching mto the dense 
forest by interminable arms, were more intricate than the 
labyrinth of Crete. The Indians excelled in the navigation 
of these lakes. Their canoes left no trail, and they could be 
hovering about for weeks, without the scouts discovering 
their presence. If they wanted to leave, they knew of 
water connections through to a score of other lakes, or 
they could flee away to the South down the Kississimee 

14 



S14 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

River, to the great Okechobee Lake in the ever- 
glades. 

Some portion of the land around the fort was of the 
same nature as that commonly known as everglade. 
ProjDerly, the everglades are confined to that portion of 
the peninsula lying between the uttermost southerly 
point, Cape Sable and Okechobee Lake, a space of about 
two degrees of latitude, though some are found further 
northward. 

No language save that of the painter's brush can 
depict the desolate immensity of one of these treeless 
swamps. There league after league of rank grass waves 
on every side, unrelieved by hope, to the explorer, of ter- 
mination or prospect of change. Here and there a thick 
leafed cactus, or cabbage-palmetto, or a clump of leafless 
cypress, grows upward, draped in the moss the stagnant 
water has bred. Fallen trunks of old trees are tangled 
with palmetto roots beneath the grass, having drifted in 
the summer rains from the place where they grew, or 
gaunt dead water-oaks hold out their arms, from which 
the flesh of leaves has dropped away, or still clings pen- 
dent from the fingers. Strange birds fly over, screeching 
in foreign tongues, and trees and stumps and grass show 
by green deposit on their sides the difi*erent heights to 
which the water that floods the waste had arisen on dif- 
ferent months. 

In the dry season this broad extent of country is nearly 
dry. During the rainy season of spring and summer the 
water lies over it in varying depths from two to twenty 



HOW WE CONQUEEED HALLECK TUSTENUGGEE. 315 

inches. Through the grass are seen winding channels 
made by the prevaihng currents and lagoons, from whose 
black muddy bottom grows the pond-lily and other float- 
ing grasses which intersect the prairie and turn back the 
pedestrian. It would seem as if the rolling of the sea had 
built an embankment of sand around all the coast, shuttinoj 
in this low-lying tract as does the cushion on a billiard- 
table, so that it could be only drained by evaporation, or 
settHng in the shallow lakes and lagoons. 

Through this Stygian pool the hunted Indian doubled 
and wound, or turned to strike pursuing soldier whose 
toilsome march he had been watching for days, or he 
disappeared into its mirage with his family, like ghosts, 
without a trail and beyond all successful pursuit. 

The story of this war has yet to be written. On the 
one side were Generals Scott, Clinch, and Worth, names 
that were dear to us, and millions of money, and loving 
chroniclers of our gallant deeds. We hunted the In- 
dians with troops, boats and dogs, and renegade spies 
crueller than the hounds, and we entraj)ped their chiefs 
at the council board, and broke up the organization of 
their bands. On the other side was a people deriving 
their weapons only from their foes, insufficiently provid- 
ed and suffering every want. They resisted our attack 
with patriotism and battled in swamp, and water, 
and reedy fastness, for thrice as many years as we were 
fighting the War of Independence, and no historian to 
record their protests, their prayers, their councils, their 
Bufferings, or heroic deeds. We know that Molly Starks 



316 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. • 

were there at every battle, for their bodies lay on the 
field when the fight was done. Bunker Hill was repre- 
sented in every cypress gall. The cruel winter at Val- 
ley Forge they underw^ent, though their torture was the 
miasma and the heat. Their capitol was burned at Pa- 
lackhckaha, and its fruitful fields were destroyed. The 
old prison-ship lay moored for them in Tampa Bay, and 
their highest chiefs were captives in its hold. They had 
their Sumpters and Marions, in Chekika and Hospetarke 
their Pulaski in Holartoochee, and their "Washington in 
Osceola ; and had their Arnolds been discovered, as ours, 
they would be Hving still, an independent people. 

If men are to be esteemed for high \irtues in propor- 
tion to the obstacles they had to overcome in attainmg 
them, and if the praise of comparative great deeds is due 
mostly to those who have from lower life made them 
eminent, the brave resistance of the savage in his 
swamp is a higher deed of chivalry than the war of a 
civilized people, with its wealth of reason and example, 
and if it does not stand on historic page in brighter light, 
it is because the page is written by the civilized race 
as defence and not as a veritable history. 

One morning, as the sentinels around the fort were 
relieved, a stranger came up to the relief, was recog- 
nized, and then sauntered mto the camp. A huge, rough, 
talkative fellow, a hunter by trade, and now following 
the camp, like many others, half for the fun and half for 
the gain ; one of that peculiar southwestern race, a sort 
of cousin to Mike, not in blood, but in position. Mike 



HOW WE CONQUERED HALLECK TUSTENUGGEE. 317 

was a little more gentle and observant, Potter a little 
rougher and jollier, more rollicksome, hailing everybody, 
singing wherever there was eating and drinking, and run- 
ning every danger to be present at a fight. His leathern 
suit, rifle, and knife, were the prominent features of his 
dress, and a keen eye and huge mouth and limb, the first 
points noticed in his person. 

Mike knew him, and recognized him with a smile and 
a question : 

"Up?" 

" No, down." 

"S'Gustine?" 

" Wall, you'd better b'lieve it." 

" Seen Injins ?" 

" Stacks of 'em — slinkin' about like coots on the St. 
Johns. Squaws, too ; somethin's up — reckon they're 
a-goin' to purr a little ; sent a letter to the old man. 
Who's your old man here now ?" continued the hui^ter, 
pulling out, as he talked, from his bullet-pouch at his belt 
a little roll of birch-bark ; " took 'em an all-fired time to 
write it, and had a big pow-wow to read it when wrote. 
Scissors! I saw some good looking Injin gals at that 
camp. Came as near being tuck that time as ever I did ; 
felt my hayar jist fixllin' off; thought I was wolf's meat 
that run. Yer see I'd been dodgin' tracks all day, so's 
to git to this clearin', and night cum on. I sez to myself, 
Go it, boots ! and made a bee line. Fust thing I knowed 
I had walked right into an Injin camp. No fire — fire'd 
gone out — cuss the fire ! Pitched slam-bang over a red- 



318 WILD S POETS IN THE SOUTH. 

skin asleep, and in a minnit there was forty atop me. 
' Hold up !' sez I ; ' I'm Injin, don't you know me ? I'm 
come mtli a letter from the great white chief,' and I 
held up an old bit of paper that Jake had given me 
at S'Gustine, with the writin' on about bringing some 
stores. They swallered the bait, and I sot there half an 
hour readm' off in Injun the cussedest lot of nonsense 
you ever heard tell on. Then they wrote this answer, 
and I started fur here ? Didn't I make dirt fly for the 
first ten miles betwixt me and them !" 

Having rattled off his account of the adventure, that 
left no more mark on his danger-loving mind than an 
every day encounter would have done, he tossed his rifle 
in the hollow of his arm, and lounged over to the cabin 
occupied by Colonel Worth. 

The missive he delivered was on clear white bii'ch- 
bark, and pictured a broken hatchet, and a half-circle of 
Indians sitting around a council fire. Being translated, 
it read : " We have broken our weapons of war, and are 
now consulting about peace ; only half our chiefs are 
here — we are waiting for them at the council." 

This message was on a par with many others that were 
constantly passing between the Indians and white leaders, 
always on the part of the Indian procrastinating and 
guarded. 

From Potter we learned many items of news from, the 
east coast, but none that served to interest us so much 
as the information of Lou Jackson. It seemed that a 
month before Lou Jackson had been in St. Augustine, 



HOW WE CONQUERED HALLECK TUSTENUGGEE. 319 

and had embarked in a revenue cutter to go down the 
coast with a relative who had been appointed light- 
keej^er somewhere in the neighborhood of Key Bis- 
cayne. 

It seemed strange that after the danger experienced 
at the plantation she would so soon go off to an equally 
exposed and lonely life. Could she not find a better 
position than that of a light-keeper's assistant ? Or did 
the lonely life it promised agree with her disposition and 
her feehngs of sadness ? 

Mike expressed his feelings, looking southward as if he 
could see the lighthouse, by the words " Waall, waall !" 

However there was no explanation to be had, and 
after talking it over, we turned to the frolic of the camp 
and the Indian negotiations, which seamed rapidly 
approaching a definite result. 

A few days more at the lakes, and we found ourselves 
at Fort King, having accompanied Col. "Worth with a 
detachment of troops by the way of Warm Springs, 
where there was a collection of Indian chiefs who had 
come in for a conference. 

This was one of the occasions of periodical truce, so 
common in this war. Each party was glad of cessation 
— the soldier to be relieved from marching and incessant 
watchfulness, and the Indian to gain time to recruit and 
purchase a stock of ammunition. At such times the pre- 
cincts of a fort was the scene of a pageant. The chiefs 
came in under the white flag, without their arms, bring- 
ing their wives and children, and pitching their camps 



320 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

right under the guns of the fort, and the sutlers traded 
with them as with the soldiers. These chiefs retained 
all their stoic dignity of manner and gaudiness of dress. 
Regarding themselves as in a measure in council, they 
dressed with care, and studied to impose on the respect 
of the whites or each other. Some of them were men 
of much influence and honor among their own people, 
nearly all of them were objects of great curiosity to the 
troops who had been so many months in their ^^ursuit, 
and who connected their names with some bloody massa- 
cre, or hard-fought battle. 

The leader of the present band was our old friend Hal- 
leck Tustenuggee, who had left the marks of his black fin- 
gers at Far Away, on our last visit there. He was standing 
at the gateway as we came in, the war paint washed from 
his face, and his heavy black hair drawn back from his 
head, and plaited down behind with the feathers of the 
roseate spoonbill ; a heavy blue blanket hung from one 
shoulder, in which was wrapj^ed one arm, and the other 
hung freely at his side. His bearing was noble as words 
could describe, and if there had not been in his eye the 
glittering cruelty of his race, something akin to the fas- 
cination in the tiger's eye that stops you as you pass his 
cage, he would have stood with credit for a Koman gen- 
eral. His wife and children were with him, and two sub- 
ordinate chiefs with their wives. The main body of his 
band, twenty-five in number, were a few miles distant, 
near the camp at Warm Springs, participating with all 
the abandon of the native character in games of ball and 



HOW WE CONQUERED HALLECK TU6TENUGGEE. 321 

quoits, wrestling and dancing. Nothing was omitted on 
the part of the officers to make the truce pleasant. Pro- 
visions and whisky were distributed and presents made, 
and, to crown all, a great feast was prepared, to which 
all the warriors were invited. When at the table, the 
commanding officer announced to them that they were 
prisoners; the soldiers, already instructed, sprung to 
their arms, and the band that no force could conquer 
were bound prisoners for life. 

A messenger was sent to convey the tidings of the 
capture to Colonel Worth, who was entertaining Tus- 
tenuggee at Fort King. The rider came fast through 
swamp and woods, for his life would be little worth 
should the day's proceeding be known to Tustenuggee, 
or any outlying Indian, before he reached a secure shel- 
ter. He approached the fort at a moment when the 
commander was sounding his Indian guest upon the ever- 
recurring subject of their emigration. The officers were 
seated in front of their quarters, the Indian chiefs stood 
before, and the idlers of the camp were gathered aroimd 
listening to " the talk." 

"A horseman is coming from the south," called out 
the Doctor, relievmg his pockets of one hand to shade 
his eyes. 

" Come as ef he was sent," remarked Mike. 

The sentry challenged, and the rider came in with his 
answer through the open gateway in the palisades and 
up to the doorway where Colonel Worth was sitting, 
and delivered his missive. Tustenuggee stood before 

14* 



322 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

him in his Roman attitude until the dispatch was read, 
and watched the while the countenance of the colonel, 
but the hard-bearded face gave no sign. 

The rider dismounted and stripped his saddle. A 
brief order was given by the colonel to the orderly who 
stood behind him, and the Indian chief resumed his talk. 

" My heart and the hearts of my chiefs are white, not 
from fear, but in love. You sent me the flag of the five 
fingers (white flag, with white and red hands clasped). 
I know you want friendship. I. trust you. Tustenuggee 
is here. Listen, white man ; what he says is true — listen, 
Great Spirit ; what he says i»true. His answers are the 
answers of his people. He is chief of the chiefs." 

The Colonel — " The chief has spoken like a brave man, 
and his words in council are like his deeds in battle. We 
all honor him, for he will listen to reason. He has lost 
many men in the wars, and the rest are weary. But the 
white soldiers still come, and will come on forever. The 
white man has many soldiers, and many weapons, and 
much ammunition. It is not good for the red man to 
fight against him, for he will waste away, no matter how 
brave. The white man has ofiered his red brothers lands 
in Arkansas many times. Some have gone there — Tus- 
tenuggee has refused. The white man now offers for the 
last time, and he wants to know if Tustenuggee will 
move at once with all his people." 

Said the chief: " Hundreds of winters ago the Great 
Spirit gave to his red children this land, its woods and 
its waters." 



HOW WE CONQIJEEED HALLECK TUSTENUGGEE. 323 

He enunciated emphatically and pointed slowly to the 
sky above him, and waved his draped arm around with 
a majesty peculiar to the oratory of his race. 

Old Primus, a snowy-haired Indian, translated into 
English as he spoke, and a secretary at the table wrote 
down the conversation. 

" Where was our white brother then ? "Where then 
was that shadow ?" pointing to the shadow of the flag on 
the oflicer's quarters, as it fluttered back and forth on the 
greensward. " Forty years ago, God made Tustenuggee. 
Then our white brothers lived to the north. Did the 
Mickasukies war against our white brother, and ask him 
to emigrate to Arkansas? The Mickasukies w^ere big 
then, and the white man very little. The Avhite man was 
so little that he could not do his own work, but had 
black man to help him. 

" Tustenuggee has always lived here. Tustenuggee's 
peoj)le have always lived here. They have loved the 
soil ; they have dropped their seed here, and. their seed 
ha-s taken root. The roots have gone down far into the 
earth. The wdiite man is a great wind. He comes from 
where w^e can't see. He blows against the red tree. If 
he blows hard enough the red tree will break down, and 
his seed be scattered, but the red tree has grown too 
long to take root elsewhere. My people are like deer — 
they have been hunted, and are shy. They start when 
they hear a twig break. They hide when it is day. The 
white man has hunted them for many winters. lie has 
burned their cabins, he has rooted up their cornfields. 



324 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

They are sick at heart. The women can find no covert 
to bring forth their young. The men dare not light a 
council-fire, or come together to talk. The chiefs 
cannot know the minds of the people, for they are 
scattered. Let there be peace. The red man will 
keep it. He who breaks peace will be punished. 
The red man will hide his hatchet, and take his hoe. 
The white soldier may go home. Then, when the 
tribe comes in from the hummocks, we will talk of 
moving. Runners will go to Sam Jones, to Octiarche, 
and to Tiger Tail. Our hearts will be open — the sun 
will shine on them — the smoke of powder shuts out the 
sun now. When tliat is gone we can see clear. Tus- 
tenuggee will not promise what he cannot perform; 
Tustenuggee is too great a chief to lie. His tongue is 
straight. When peace comes he will see clear. Then 
he will read the white chief what is written in the hearts 
of his people about moving. Tustenuggee has spoken." 

The Indian stepped back, and wrapped his blanket 
around him. 

The colonel arose, and said : " Halleck Tustenuggee, 
I read your thoughts. You have wanted a truce to buy 
ammunition and provisions. You would then do as you 
have done before — take to the swamps and renew the war. 
This stratagem is now to be ended. At Warm Springs, 
to-day, all your warriors have been taken prisoners, with 
their wives and children, and will be sent forthwith to 
Arkansas. You and your chief are also prisoners, and 
will accompany them." 



HOW WE CONQUERED HALLECK TDSTENUGGEE. 325 

Tustenuggee looked around him with a quick gesture. 
The gate in the pahsade fence was drawn, and the 
soldiers were under arms. His eye flashed, his breast 
heaved, and, as his young chiefs made a desperate, but 
unavailing attempt to escape by scaling the palisades, he 
quietly drew his blanket over his head and sat on the 
ground. 

No word was said by the bystanders. The intense 
interest of the scene chained every tongue. The sentinel 
stopped on his round. The soldiers gathered from their 
avocations. The orders given by the colonel for the 
security of his prisoners was delivered in a low tone, and 
as they moved away to the guard-house our hearts 
seemed to beat again as if after the spectacle of some 
great tragedy. 

Thus ended the career of this great chief. The woods 
knew him no more. His race lost his fiery valor, his 
vindictive vengeance, his far-sighted policy, and the in- 
fluence of his name. He Avas one of the haughtiest and 
most uncompromising foes the white man ever had, and 
was only taken by the same means that Osceola had been 
before him. 

That night, while most of the camp had retired, or 
were quietly sitting by the fires that lighted the in- 
closure, a savage scene was enacted in the guard-room 
where the prisoners were confined under a guard of 
soldiers. A large fire was lighted and the captives sat 
around it, among them several of the Indians taken at 
the other camp, that had been forwarded for security. 



826 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

It appears they had been canvassing the means by which 
they had been made captive, and one of them had inti- 
mated that it could only have been effected by the 
treachery of their chief. 

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than Tus- 
tenuggee was on his feet. Bounding over the fire, he 
struck the bold speaker in the breast with both feet, 
then seized him by the throat, and as those in the yard, 
attracted by the tumult, reached the window of the 
building, they saw him almost strangled in the tiger-like 
clutch of the raving chief. Before help could be rendered 
him, Tustenuggee had seized the ear of his antagonist 
between his teeth and bitten it off, then throwing aside 
his prey, he ground the ear between his teeth, and spat 
the clotted flesh in the faces of the guard, then, raising 
his sinewy form to its grandest height, and waving his 
arm, he gave the Indian whoop, and called out with a 
wild voice twice, " Halleck Tustenuggee ! Halleck Tus- 
tenuggee !" and fell back to his seat, trembling with ex- 
citement and the rush of his passions. 

The strange accessories of form and color, the armed 
guard, and red fire-light, the savage act of the barbarian, 
impressed the scene on our minds as the act of a demon. 
It held us enchained, and we looked on the actor as a 
caged lion. 

On the morrow he and his chiefs were on their way to 
Tampa Bay, to be sent by ship to ISTew Orleans. 



THE "painter" in THE PIG PEN. 327 



CHAPTER XXn. 

THE "painter" IN THE PIG PEN. 

" I was with Hercules and Cadmus, once, 
"When in a wood of Crete, they bay'd the bear 
With hounds of Sparta ; never did I hear 
Such gallant chiding." 

MlDStJMMER-NIGHT'S DrEAM. 

The days were getting rapidly warmer in the interior, 
cut off as we were a large portion of the time by the 
close woods from the free winds. The ducks had gone 
to the northward long since, and with them the snipe and 
many song birds. To take their place, the flowers were 
opening to the spring on every side. 

Hunters are rarely botanists. None of their wants are 
aided by its knowledge, with the excej^tion of the know- 
ledge of the points of the compass, told by the moss, or an 
acquaintance with the texture of different woods, or the 
medicinal properties of a few plants. They are equally 
unused to the description of flowering plants. The 
pointed cutting of a deer's hoof on a cactus leaf to them 
is a greater study than the most radiant flower that ever 
fringed its pulpous leaf. They cannot give technical 
descriptions, and but few natural ones. They may not 
call the stars by their names, or classify the active life 



328 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

that j)eo23les every muddy pool, or makes a decayed tree 
a miniature world. 

Yet, for all this, there is no race on whom the sweet 
influences of the Pleiades fall who are more open to their 
soothing — none to whose eyes the radiations of the flower 
aflord a keener pleasure — none to whom the fragrance 
of the woods opens a more vivid association, or who are 
more observantly drinking in, night and day, those ^sop 
lessons that man puts into a fable, but that God talks with 
in letters of life. The constant silent observation of what 
is around him makes his recognition quicker ; his natural 
active life makes his senses keener, and the soft, damp, 
fragrant wmd that touches his cheek in passing, may tell 
him of a change of weather, of the wet swamp that he is 
skii'ting, and may even whisper the kinds of trees and 
plants there growing, and whether in bloom or no ; the 
plants will tell the soil, and he may know the very ani- 
mal life that lives in the woods before him, by what on 
another cheek would be a passing wind, and nothing 
more. 

Even the roughest hunters at the Fort could show 
this observant taste. Mike had it to a great extent. 
Potter had it, though burlesqued by the \vild, random 
manner of an impulsive boy. "We would often get them 
talking in order to lead them out. Evening was the 
ordinary occasion of many tales and practical jokes. The 
men would gather around the huge fires, sitting and 
lying in every attitude. Negro interpreters, Indians and 
soldiers, the volunteer hunters, that gained their living 



THE "painter" in THE PIG PEN. 329 

by supplying the garrison with game, and the officers, in 
uniforms that the swamps had left no longer uniform or 
neat. Names well known in the Florida wars were called 
and answered to. There were Primus and Gopher John, 
the Indian scouts, and Holatter Mico, the royal chief, 
and Vose and Wilcoxson, officers, and Mike, Potter, and 
a score of others whose local fame then ran as high as 
Marechals of France, though in a narrower sphere and 
for a shorter term. 

There were drinks of government w^hisky, and smokes 
from pipes shorter and blacker than a Killarney man 
could fix in his hat-band, and Irish jokes, and yarns of 
monstrous length, that were roughly criticised or excelled 
by some other more incredulous still. 

Potter gave us one. Seated astride of an empty bar- 
rel, with his rifle across his knees, his buckskm cap 
pushed back on his head, his blue flannel shirt-collar 
rolled back, exposing a breast as broad and shaggy as a 
bear's, he told us the following story with gesticulations 
and amid peals of laughter : 

" Wall, you see how it was. Squire, is this." 

The speaker took a long pull at his pipe, gave a hitch 
to his suspenders, and then, ejecting the dense smoke in 
volumes through his nostrils, commenced his narration. 

" I was living that year on the coast, purty nigh St. 
Augustine. It was late in the year and the night Avas on- 
common dark — wall, it was — and the wind roared ugly. 
Yer could hear the trees smashin' up in the Avoods every 
five minits when it buckled to a little extry, and when 



330 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

yer put yer head out o' the door, as I did once in a hit to 
see, you couldn't have seen Talyhasse Capitol House ef 
you had rubhed your nose agin it. The big breakers 
were poundm' on the bar, and yer could see 'em one by 
one whare they struck, for the phosper lit 'em up like 
blue paint. We had a screechin' fire in the chimney, 
and it was right good to look at. The old woman was 
a-mending clothes in the corner, and I thought it war a 
cussed sight better bein' a home body and turnin' in by 
the side of one's o^ai wife than a-roosting all night in the 
open range, as I had bein' a-doin' for a month back. 

" Parson Smith war thar, too ; he had dropped in goin' 
up to Pelatky on a revival trip, and seein' the blow 
comin' on staid all night, and he was talkin' religion to 
Marthy by the fire, drying himself and convartin' a soul 
both ter once. Parson Smith was a likely man and a 
rael talker. They called him Doctor, and he wrote his 
name Pev. Eliakim Smith, M.D. M.D. stood for Medi- 
cine Doctor, though that war somethin' of a lie, for he 
war a horse-doctor before he took to religion, and he had 
a kind of oily way of rubbin' his hands down his legs as 
he sat by the fire and talked away that would take the 
spavin right out of a woman, and convart her in two- 
forty. 

" Wall, there he sat a-rubbm away and watchin' the 
taters roastin' in the ashes and the bacon frying in the 
pan, and talkin' of Election and Delilah, and them other 
holy women folks in the Bible, till I begun to feel holy 
myself, and thought I was in the land o» Canaan, when I 



THE " PAINTER " IN THE PIG PEN. 331 

fancied I heerd a painter screech. I was wide awake in 
a minnit. 'Holy Moses!' sez I. The Doctor hadn't 
heerd the painter, so he thought I was getting grace, 
and he right away buckled into me with all sorts of Bible 
sayin's, and my wife jined in, but I jist riz up and went 
to the cabin wall, where there was a little winder that I 
had cut to look out toward the woods. I pulled out the 
shutter and put my head through, but yer might as well 
have looked into the Kentucky cave, it was so dark. 
The wind come in, too, so strong and chill-like, that it 
made the Doctor and my old woman draw up a little 
closer together. I listened a while to see if I could make 
out any signs of the critter, but it war no use. What 
betAveen the surf a hammerin' on the bar, and the 
branches crackin' in the woods, and the squalling of the 
gulls that had blowed in from the sea, you couldn't a 
heerd a neighbor asking you to take a drink, and I reckon 
that is what a man hears quickest. Once in a while one 
of the big water-oaks would topple over in the woods. I 
knowed it had hlowed over^ for it made such a smashin' 
of little branches when a hull tree come over, and then a 
short tag or two as the roots broke. Then agm yer 
could hear one of them tall pines on the ridge break. 
There was no give there ; it Avould break short off with 
a crack like four or five rifles. I would have bet I could 
have ^old the very trees that snaj^ped, I knew 'em all so 
well. Then agui the wind would die away, and you 
didn't hear nothin' but the rain. 

" ' Jist the night fur them varmints,' says I, drawin' 



832 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

my head in again ; ' tliey allers come down in a storm, 
kind of unsuspectin' like ; that's their natur.' 

" ' Yes, nothin' so decaitful as the 'Piscopalians,' says 
the Doctor. 

" I knowed what he was after ; the Doctor went tooth 
and nail aginst the 'Piscopahans, and so did the 'Pisco- 
palians 'ginst him. That's the natur' of religious people. 

" ' No,' sez I, ' it was the pamters.' 

" 'Painters! where? — have you seen a j^ainter?' 

" ' No, but I heerd one just now.' 

" ' You don't mean it,' sez he, and he went right over 
to his saddle-bags that was lyin' on the bed, and tuck out 
two of the longest kind of Spanish pistols, and primed 
'em up, sayin' all the while somethin' about how with the 
jawbone of an ass he had slain a thousand men. 

" I didn't believe the critter, for he was given to blow- 
in' ; but Marthy she jist swallowed it all like batter cakes. 

" I seen old Boz, who was asleep by the fire a whim- 
perin' away — you know how dogs take on when they're 
dreamin' — raise his head quick hke and make a straight 
pint for the t'other eend of the cabin, whare the logs was 
a little open like. He stood there for about a minnit 
and then came back and laid down agin. I knew some- 
thin' was up, and tkat screech I heerd war true music. 
The old woman seed the dog, and she broke in with — 

" * Yes, that's so ; when I, my old man, and the dog, 
both smell painter, I knows there is painter. Two dogs 
don't both make a false pint to once.' 

"At this Doctor Smith he walks to the door and 



THE "painter" m THE PIG PEN. 333 

unlatches it ; the wind blew it wide open. I saw a pair 
of long white horns outside, and that minnit the Doctor 
gave jist one of the biggest yells yer ever heerd a wild 
Injin make ; one of his pistols went off; I don't know ef 
he fired it off, or it went off of itself, and the preacher 
went over backwards as my yoke of young steers came a 
rushin' right in the cabin. Lord ! yer could a heerd me 
larf a mile. 

"The critters was a frightened in the storm, and 
maybe had smelt the painter, and were mighty glad to 
get in the house where the light was ; but they weren't 
half as frightened as the Doctor was. He hadn't any 
more pluck in him than an old hen on a rainy day ; he 
was right wilted down, though he tried to show how the 
bullock had hit his arm and that had fired the pistol. 

*' We got the critters out agin presently, though they 
didn't want to go and I sot a thinkin' about it, and won- 
derin' how it was they were so onusual skeery, and the old 
woman had fixed the Doctor somethin' warm, and I hadn't 
heern any more of the painter for an hour or more, 
when all of a sudden, queek, quee-ee-ee-ak, we heerd the 
old sow go, and a thumpin' noise, and the cattle bellowed 
and run around the house. 

" Thar, I knowed it," says I as I grabbed ray rifle, 
upsettin' the teapot, ' cuss the painter, he's got the old 
sow.' 

" Lord, you sliould ha seen that cabin empty itself 
Boz and the other dogs first, and then the Doctor and 
his pistols, and then the old woman, though she was the 



834 WILD 8P0KTS IN THE SOTJTH. 

smartest man of the lot, fur she brought out a big 
pitch pine knot all afire, to see what we were goin' 
after. 

"I put right for the pig pen; that was about eight 
rods off from the house, and where the pigs were a squee- 
lin' bloody murder all the time. That's what bothered 
me. I knew if the painter had got a pig he must have 
killed it right off, and then he would up and away with 
the carcass. That's the natur' of the varmint. Could it 
be an old she painter a havin' one of her cubs out exer- 
cising him, and the cub couldn't lug off his share of the 
game ? 

" We got up to the pen. It Avas a log cabin about 
twelve feet square, built of heavy logs, jist to stop such 
doin's as this. ' The doajs had their noses to the cracks 
baying away like all fired, and the pigs were a snortin' 
and squealing inside ; but the strangest thing was, that 
the door was tight fast, the chain across it, and the big 
oak pin drove in as tight as ever. 

" ' Whar is the painter V says the Doctor, as he came 
sidelin' up, lookin' behind every stump. 

" ' That's jist what I want to know,' says I, as I cum 
around the buildin' to look for his hole, but without 
findin' it. The pigs were a squealin' away as if they 
would sj^lit their throats, and the dogs were a dancin' 
and a howlin. The old woman was a sayin' somethin', 
but you couldn't hear what it was, for the wind blew as 
bad as ever ; it only wanted that cussed painter's screech 
to make it all complete ; and jist then, as I am a livin' 



THE "pAINTEk" in THE PIG PEN. 335 

sinner, the varmint gave his screech, and it was inside 
the pen. 

" I say. Squire, it would ha done yer good to have 
heard that screech, and ha seen that scrimmage. I've 
heam the varmints screech many a time when they and 
I have been in the woods all alone, but then it w^as kind 
a soft like, as if he was a dom' it for his amusement when 
he was lonely ; he puts it then in the best metre, of 
course, and it isn't disagreeable, unless he might be too 
close to you. But here he didn't smooth it down, his 
dander was evidently riz, and he yelled out as if he was 
filing a ninety horse power saw with the Kocky Moun- 
tains, and wound up with a spit that jist took the hair 
off a steam whistle. The young pups drew back a little 
and howled, and the old dogs went nearly mad because 
they couldn't get through the cracks between the logs. 

" The Doctor was for settin' fire to the cabin and 
burning him up. The old woman was fur cuttin' a hole 
in the door and shootin' him. That was kind of onfair 
to the varmint, I thought. Sez I, ' I'll show you a pret- 
tier trick than that ; I'll jist open the door, and then, 
Marthy, if you hold the light steady, I'll take him with 
a poke in the ribs that will stop his stealin' my pigs. 
There is no miss fire to my gun, and that won't be impo- 
sin' on a varmint that's down.' I put my hand to the 
peg that held the chain, when the Doctor, taking the 
ends of the logs that stuck out at the corner of the cabin 
for a stairs, jist put himself on the top of the pen in 
a shake of a deer's tail. I smiled softly to myself, 



336 WILD SPORTS m the south. 

but I didn't say notliin', for thinks I to myself, if the var- 
mint does come out here, and I do miss him, or only 
wound him, the dogs will be on him like a shot and then 
he'll go to tree right on top of the cabin, that's sure, 

" So I tugged at the peg, and every time the chain 
rattled, the Doctor -edged back on the top of the cabin, 
gettin' up to the ridge, I s'pose, for a sure seat, when all 
of a sudden he disaj^peared. Heavens and yearth ! he 
had come backwards onto the hole the j^ainter had dug 
in the roof, and had tumbled in. 

" Yer should have heerd that man scream ! The 
painter wasn't nothin' to it. Painter might have been 
some louder, but then it wasn't so skeery. It fairly made 
me shaky to hear liim. As he come down to the ground 
inside, there was such a bustling around in that little 
buildmg ! pigs and painter and- man, all seemed to be 
stirring about pretty lively, and to all the other noises 
the old woman set up a screechin' that made me more 
shaky than anything else. 

"'QuickC' she hollered, 'pull open the door — quick! 
Ob, Eliakim ! oh dear !' 

" I pulled as hard as I could, but the cussed peg had 
swelled ^vith the rain, and yer couldn't budge it, and the 
chain was the ox-chain, as went all across the door. 

" ' Tear it down, you old pirate !" says the old woman 
to me, and she took hold of it with both hands, but she 
might as well have tried to pull down the cabin. And 
all the time, between the howHngs of the dogs and the 
sqiieelings of the pigs I could hear the Doctor a!^:)raying 



THE "painter" in THE PIG PEN. 337 

away one minit as loud as lie could bawl, and at another 
minit callin' to me to come and help Inm. 

" ' Rim,' sez I to the old woman, ' run to the house for 
the axe.' 

" Away she started, leaving the torch with me, and 
she run like a wild Injun. I kneeled do\Mi so as to get 
on a level with them, and puttin' the pine knot so it 
would shine through, I peeped in at the varmint. Lord ! 
he was a beauty. Crouched up in the fur corner of the 
cabin, he stood with one foot on the wall, ready for a 
jump. His glossy bay coat shone like a horse. His eyes 
looked like two blue lights out on Florida Keys, and his 
open mouth all the time dropped water dov\m on his 
whitish chest and on his feet. Once in a while he'd take 
a look up at the hole in the roof and lay down his ears, 
as if to jump at it, but it was a leetle too high for him, 
and he couldn't get room enough to make the leap. Oh, 
he was a purty critter. His feelers were as long as a ram- 
rod, and when he looked up at the roof they lay so far back 
that they reached the wrinkle that crossed his shoulders, 
the only wrinkle on his body. I wanted to take a shy 
at him, but it warn't no use, the cracks were so nar- 
now I couldn't begin to sight over my rifle, and knowed 
if I wounded the beast it would be all day with the Doc- 
tor. * Oh,' thinks I to myself, ' ef I could get my pigs 
and the Doctor out, I'd manage some way so as to take 
him alive, and make a sj^ec out of a real live paintej*. 
'Twould be the first ever seed in Ameriky, I reckon.' 

" Just then the Doctor broke out afresh, half a screech 
15 



338 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

in', half a prayin'; he seemed to be kind o' coniessin' to 
the painter, for he rras goin' over Y>-hat a sinner he had 
been, and talking about Daniel in the lion's den, and the 
Bword of the Lord, and somethin' about Gideon, and 
Samson and the young lion, and yer never did hear a 
critter get out so much that was pious in so short a time. 
I think if I wanted to convart a sinner I'd shut him up 
with a painter, I would. 

" Just as he was sayin' somethin' about reposin' on the 
l^rotectin' arm, the painter gave a jump for the hole in 
the roof. 

*' Jehoshaphat ! what a jump! he got his fore claws 
on to the shingles, but the shingles give way and down 
he cum with a spiteful screech. "VYith that the pigs 
rushed around in double quick time, and Eliakim, for- 
getting his praying, hollered for me and Marthy to come 
and help him. He was like the old woman who said she 
trusted in Providence, when her horse run away with her, 
till the britchen broke, and then she guv up. 

" Poor fellow, I felt for him ; every time the painter 
moved, he and the lAgs moved too, and they were 
hazed around that pig-pen in double quick time, for the 
painter is a restless brute, and can't abide standin' 
still. 

" Soon the old woman came back with the axe, and I 
conimenced cuttin' the peg that held the chain. This 
riled the painter, and he commenced runnin' round live- 
lier than ever, and away went the pigs, gruntin' and 
Bqueakin', and away went the Doctor, runnin' and 



THE "painter" in THE PIG PEN. 339 

jumpin' over the dend sow the painter had killed, prayin' 
away and callin' to me by turns. " Oh, Potter ! quick — 
he merciful to me — a — a — painter's comin' — as you 
hope — to — he — saved — blasted sow — oh, ough — salva- 
tion !'» 

" A stroke or two of the axe cut off the plug. ' Stand 
aside Marthy,' sez I, as I pulled down the chain and 
threw open the door. I had my rifle to my shoulder. 
The first thing that cum out was the Doctor ; it nearly 
cost him his life, for I was just a pullin' on hun when he 
said somethin' and saved himself; then came the painter 
quicker than greased lightning ; as he struck the ground 
outside after his first jump, I puUed on him. The ball 
struck him just in the shoulder, breaking one leg; he 
fell, but was on his feet again quicker than thought, and 
every one of the sixteen dogs, pups and all, on top of 
him. 

"Phew! what a tussel! 'Go it pups!' sez Marthy, 
holdm' up her light. * Go it yaller backs.' That old 
woman was dare grit — well, she was. Gone now, poor 
soul !" and the frontiersman wiped his eye with the sleeve 
of his hunting-shirt — " killed herself learnin' to read. 

" The painter fetched himself up on his hind legs, like 
a bar, hissin' all the while. One leg hung down — that 
-was the broken one — the t'other one ho fetched around 
among the dogs, and knocked 'em over like nine-pins. 
Old Boz took some of it, and it keeled him up straight, 
and then Tinker, and Sumter. I seen 'em getting cut 
awful, and so I walked into the muss with the axe. One 



340 WILD SPOETS m THE SOUTH. 

cut did the business. It took Mm just over the ear and 
druv into the brain, and thar's his skin, now aint it a 
beauty ? 

" Wall, the Doctor was in the house when we cum in 
with the painter, and he was still holden on to his pistol. 
He was just used up, and all my larfin at him, and all 
Marthy's Schiedam Schnapps didn't cure him. He took 
the fever and ague, and couldn't leave the house for a 
week, and when he went he war so weak in the back 
that he could hardly sit on his horse. 

" He stopped there purty often again that winter, goin* 
and a comin', but ef we ever heard anything out doors 
nights he would always coax me to go off and see what 
it was, but he never left the house, and was purty sure 
to lock the door when I was gone, to keep the varminta 
from comin' m. That's the natur' of a doctor." 



POKE KECEIVES A CUe'oSITY AND TELLS A TAEN. B4J. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

POKE KECEIVES A CUE'OSITY AND TELLS A TARN. 

" Oblivion here thy wisdom is, 
Thy thrift the sleep of cares ; 
For a proud idleness like this 
Crowns all life's mean affairs." 

Emerson. 

The Indian prisoners had gone with most of the gar- 
rison to Tampa Bay ; the fort looked desolate in contrast 
with its previous crowd and excitement, and we were 
anxious to start for the east coast. 

Our party had made preparations to descend the 
Ochlawaha to Lake George, and thence down the St. 
Jolms, and Mike had employed his leisure, and our negro 
boys, Scip and Caesar, in building two dug-out canoes. 
In these our " plunder " was carefully stowed, and with a 
store of salt provisions from the fort, one pleasant day 
we embarked and swept away down the current. 

There is something of unusual novelty in descending a 
Florida river. An aspect of dreariness that only long 
habit overcomes, quiets the tongue and awes the heart. 
The black turbid river boils in circular eddies, or spreads 
in motionless lagoons, far into the neighboring woods. 
The stiff cypress trees stand naked with then- feet in the 



342 "WILD SPORTS IN THE BOTTIII. 

water as though relying for foliage upon the grey Spanish 
moss that hangs from everything in tresses and curtains 
of wondrous length, sometimes reaching from the upper 
limbs into the water, and marking the directionof the cur- 
rent. Where the lagoons opened into the river there was 
constant doubt as to the course of the channel, for the 
lagoon might be broader than the true course, or the 
latter totally shrouded from sight by the draping moss or 
jammed trees. Sometimes the leading boat would wait 
for its fellow, calling to it a few feet off to come through 
some curtain of vegetation, where it had just found a 
passage. There was no animal life here save reptiles, 
and little vegetable beauty. It was a stagnant waste, 
overhung by the dead growth of ancient times. 

Then, too, there was a watchfuhiess against Indian 
contact that made our passage seem more like a flight 
than a hunt, and when some alligator rushed from the 
bank to the water, the noise would startle us and bring 
back the scene when Jackson died on just such ajDassage 
down the Ouithlacouchee. Two, or three days brought 
us into pleasanter life, and our eyes were greeted Avith 
the open water of Lake George and the varied vegetation 
of its low-lying shores. 

It was curious to watch Mike make his entry on the 
lake. As we ai^proached, our boats came nearer and 
paddled slower. We hugged the shore closely, and 
when the first faint roll of the waves of the lake came 
mto the river, he motioned us to stay, and glided down 
among the rushes in his own canoe, watching the broad 



POKE EECEIYES A CUe'oSITY AND TELLS A YAEN. 343 

open water with a keen, careful eye. We slowly came 
ap and followecl him as, parting the reeds, he wound 
along the shore some quarter of a mile, till where the 
grass began to groAV thin. Then beaching the canoes 
where they could not be seen from the lake, we unpacked 
cm* provisions, and, seated where .we could overlook all 
the water, and yet not be seen, ate our dinner and took 
our noonday nap. 

The propriety of Mike's caution in a little while 
became apparent. A canoe came out from one of the 
outlets of the lake a mile down, and crossed over to the 
side where we were sitting. In it was a single Indian. 
This was followed at a short distance by another with 
three women, and both boats disappeared in a cove. 
Had we been on the lake we should have been seen, or 
had we continued our course we must have met them, 

*' What's that mean, Mike ?'» 

" Injins." 

*' Yes ; but what are they doing ? Is there a tribe of 
them here, and are they on a war party, or what ?" 

"No; it's a band ; they've got their squaws Avith 'em. 
They're travellin', fur they paddle, leastwise the squaws 
do, as ef they were tired. And there's more on 'cm 
somewhars, for there's too many squaws there fur that 
cue red-skin. Keep quiet and they'll show their hand.'* 

Before night three other canoes passed the lake in the 
same direction, and turned round the projecting point 
where the first appeared. 

The evening came on apace. Tbo sun set — a globe of 



344 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

fire. The pencillings of red on the lakes shortened ; and 
then disajitpeared. The bh'ds that had fished all day m 
the shallows settled in the trees to roost. The earth 
wrapped itself in darkness as a mantle, and left to dews 
the freshened air. 

" Wall," said Mike, after a big yawn, " let's do some- 
thin'." 

" Yes, and that something must be to get out of this 
place as soon as possible," quoth the Doctor. 

" No !" replied Mike, w^ith a comical accent. 

" It's very well for you, Mike, who have a gift for 
Indians, to hang about them, but I don't think I care to 
have my ears bitten off, like Tustenuggee's aid-de- 
camp." 

" We're all right so long as we squat here, and make 
no fire, or any trails, but when we come to go away we 
may meet more Injins in the river." 

" But the faster we go, the less likelihood of meet- 
ing." 

" Wall, we will go. . Shut up, YoAvler, you dod-rotted 
dog !" to the hound, who was attempting one of his 
houndish yelps. " But first I must see who them cree- 
ters is, and ef you'll keep quiet here awhile, I'll go 
look." 

So, in spite of the general dissent, Mike took one of 
the canoes and disappeared in the darkness, while the 
negroes crept up close like monkeys, shivering with fear 
of the darkness and danger, and we chatted in low tones 
of the scene around us. There was a steam on the 



POKE KECEIVES A CTIr'oSITY AND TELLS A YAEN. 345 

water that looked like a gathering fog, and made it dark 
close to its surfoce. The night was hushed, and the 
heavy booming of the alligator bull came down the lake 
like the muffled roar of a lion. 

In an hour Mike returned, with his quiet salutation, 
stepping ashore and tossing something in the Doctor's 
lap, saying, " Tliar's a cur'osity for your collection." 

The Doctor picked it up, but it was too dark to tell 
what it was. It looked like the boy's toy called a sucker, 
made of a circular piece of leather, about thi-ee mches in 
diameter, with a string fastened to it. 

"What is it, Mike?" 

*' Somebody's heyar." 

"A scalp?" 

"Reckon." 

" Where did that come from ? It is not a fresh one." 

" Stole it from those beggars ; too lazy to watch their 
own boats !" 

" How many of them are there ?" 

" Nine, and five squaws. I stole the only scalp they 
had, ?nd jist marked my cross on their canoe with my 
knife, so they'll know 'twas me. It's that cussed old 
Tiger Tail. Drat his red skin ! won't he swear some to- 
morrow ! I reckon we'd better go. Marbee it wouldn't 
be safe to be loafin' 'beout here when he finds his canoe 
punched and his scalp stole." 

No one obeyed this suggestion to depart with more 
alacrity than the Doctor, who already felt Tiger Tail's 
fingers clutching his own scalp-lock in revenge for the' 
15* 



346 WILD SPOETS m the south. 

lost one, and a few minutes found us on the lake pushing 
fast and silently for the St. Johns. 

The next morning we learned the cause of the move- 
ment of Tiger Tail's band. The flight of several flocks of 
water birds, and the chattering of the blue jays, gave us 
warning of the approach of some stranger, and, taking to 
the bushes that fringed the banks, we watched for what 
would appear. Soon we heard the measured stroke of 
oars, and then several Indian and negro scouts in canoes 
passed without observmg us, and then swept along six 
barge-loads of soldiers — a part of the Second Regiment 
moving up the river on one of their forays, by which 
they sought to disturb the securit}^ and products of their 
foes. The American flag was flying at the bow of the 
leading boat, and the merry laugh of the men, and the 
loud joke and call passed from front to rear, showed 
how inadequate they were to catching their fleeter foes. 

*' Ilulloa !" said Mike, pushing out his canoe from the 
reeds, " goin' a fishin' ?" 

This sudden satirical salutation brought the boats to a 
halt, and sent half the soldiers searching about for their 
muskets. 

" Where are you from, and where to ?" was the answer 
of the ofiicer. 

" Oh, cross country, gom' a pleasurin'," responded Mike. 

" Seen any Indian signs ?" 

" No signs in partickalar ; stopped at Tiger Tail's camp 
a piece back," replied Mike, gradually moving down the 
river, and away from the boats. 



poe:e eeceites a cue'osity and tells a tabn. 34:7 

"That's the band ^'o are after. How soon do you 
think we will come up to them ?" The boats getting 
further olT all the time. 

" Never !" responded Mike, paddling down stream at 
full speed. "Ketch a fish-hawk jist as soon," he con- 
tinued in an undertone. 

The boats had resumed their course, when the offi- 
cer, who seemed to know our hunter, hailed us once 
more. 

" Hulloa !" 

" Hulloa !" said Mike. 

" Come and guide us, and you will be well paid." 

" 'No ; you're too many of you, 'taint no use ;" and a 
turn of the river carried us out of sioht. 

That night we camped early, perfectly secure from arw 
noyance, for the passage of the troops up the river had, 
we judged, driven away any lurking Indians. Indeed, 
the only band in the St. Johns which we were approach- 
ing had been Tiger Tail's, the rest being occupied with 
the treaties and negotiations that had been in progress 
on the west coast. So we kindled our fires and cooked 
our meal, and laid down to talk and dream of old adven- 
tures, or half-forgotten hopes. 

Mike assured us that he had no tales to tell, mumbled 
about Tiger Tail, and wondered where he was leading 
his band, then ventured some remark about Lou Jack- 
son, half to himself and half to his hound, and then fell 
asleep. The Doctor being called on for a story, gave up 
an account of a fire-hunt in the woods of the Adirondag, 



0±S WILD SPOKTS m THE SOUTH. 

As nearly as I can remember, it was as follows. I can't 
rei^eat the Avords, only the ideas. They were pleasant ; 
he was a poetical fellow, that Doctor, when it grew late 
in the evening. 

Beyond Little Tapper's Lake, some three or fonr miles 
fm^ther on in the wilderness, toward the Racqnette, hes 
Little Rock Pond, a mere dot of glass set in the emerald 
woods that stretch for miles away in every direction, mi- 
broken by human thrift and nnmarked by the fruits of 
that primal curse that caused the thorns and the thistles 
to be brought forth. Connecting these two sheets of 
water is a narrow stream so insignificant that it joyfully 
runs its way nameless and unknown. The hills stand 
back on firmer bottom, and the little valley bordering 
the river is filled with succulent grass, reeds, swamp 
alders, and rose-trees that blossom and bud for the wild 
game alone. Here Stalknecht and I had a camp and 
were spending a month together, keeping house in the 
only decent manner there is of livmg in this free country, 
where the servants are all a little better than their mas- 
ters. (Poke was violently oj^posed to Irish servants, y 

Hank, my guide, and I one night paddled our boat up 
this stream to its source in Hock Pond, and when dark- 
ness had come we lighted our jack-light, and, setting it 
in the bow of the boat, he took his seat in the stern with 
the paddle, and I mine in the bow with my double-bar- 
relled rifle, and we commenced to descend the stream. 
A jack-light is so arranged that it throws a bright light 
in front of the canoe, while it leaves the boat in utter 



darkness, and the hunter, thus sitting in obscurity, is en. 
abled to see anything in range of his light with perfect 
distinctness. So we began to descend the stream. Our 
voices, subdued to a whisper, were presently hushed alto- 
gether. Not a sound disturbed the perfect stillness ; no 
splash of the paddle in the dexterous hand of the guide ; 
no noise of motion ; we floated on the water as the moon 
floats when " with white fire ladened " she sails out into 
the still night. The weird trees, naked of leaves and 
shirted in moss, flashed out in light, and then fell back 
in darkness, save when their tops marked the sky beyond. 
Bush and flower, reeds pendent with their heavy seed, 
and lancifoliate lilies, with their deep blue plumes, lateral 
lagoons, gemmed with water-plants and bordered with 
their larches, came out into the light, drojDped into the 
darkness, and were succeeded by others in clumps and 
clusters, and festooned by blackberry vines. Ghostly- 
looking sights, stumps that had supernatural shapes, and 
tombstone trunks, blanched white by rain, marked the 
banks. 

Kee-honk ! kee-honk! screams a blue heron in harsh, 
aspirated accents, as he springs into the air, fanning the 
night with his great wings in measured beats that can 
be heard long after he is beyond sight. The muskrats 
come out in the circle of light before the boat, in won- 
derment at the pale fire that awakens them, and dive 
beneath the waters when the boat is on them. The boat 
swings around in the turning of the stream, and I see the 
erect head and large ears of a deer. It is a doe, foi 



350 WILD SPOPwTS IN THE SOUTH. 

there are no horns. A moment of pause to be sure that 
I am right, and the ringing shot awakens a hundred 
echoes, and clouds the air with smoke* 

" Why, ye'nt seen no deer, did yer ?" asked Hank. 

"Yes, a doe." 

A dip of the paddle sends the boat to the shore, and 
then discloses to my mortified gaze, the charred limb 
of a tree, standing up in the grass, the veriest spectre of 
a deer. 

"Well, your doe is dished now — ha ! ha!" laughs Hank. 

I load my rifle rather humbly. " Ready — push on !" 

" Don't you want to see if you hit it ?" 

" No ; push on, will you." 

The boat glided forward again, mile after mile, in the 
same spectral journey, as fast and as still as the dead do 
ride in the ballad of Leonora. My mind floats along with 
the water-bugs that run ahead of me and the shadows. 
I see the stars floating in the Avater, and those overhead 
likewise, and many more stars than ever shone in these 
latitudes. In fact, I got asleep. I don't think I had 
slept long when I was awakened by a shrill noise, resem- 
bling the letting off of steam from a small steam-engine 
when the valve is suddenly opened and as suddenly closed 
again. I have heard such noises in a country church 
before the commencement of exercises, when some ple- 
thoric deacon blowed his brazen nose, only, if anything, 
the night-bugle was a little more emphatic, and scA^eral 
times repeated in quick succession. " What's that ?" I 
whispered. 



POKE RECEIVES A CUe'oSITY AND TELLS A YAEN. 351 

"Deer," responded Hank, in a whisper, swinging 
around the canoe so that, as the light moved, against the 
woods, the motion of the boat brought forth two or 
three more sneezes, and then we heard a heavy crashing 
through the bushes as the deer da.hed up the hill, 
awakening the echoes with his nose, more terrifying than 
Bardolph's fiery beak to all the bottom land ; for imme- 
diately, from the other side of the brook, another great 
buck took up the cry,and rushed up the hill to the summit, 
where he stood some minutes, stamping the ground and 
startling the darkness with that most singular of 
alarums. 

" Two big bucks," said Hank. " There be'ent much 
good huntin' here any longer ; we've got back to the 
lakes agin, and them bucks has called off all the others.'* 

" But it won't do to give it up so. Hank ; we must have 
a deer, or v>^e won't go home till morning. Think of the 
hungry mouths in camp." 

"Wall, I suppose we can try them sand-beaches 
round on the south shore. I kinder think the bucks 
fodder on the sand beaches more'n on lily pads this time 
o' year." 

So around we went, glarhig our Cyclopean eye over 
the open lake, and causing the loons to laugh like mon- 
keys. One or two islands stand out in the open water 
where the brook makes in, and we passed around their 
'jutting rocks to the southern shore. The water began 
to shoal, and I could see the white sand on the bottom, 
from which here and there the osiers reared their taper 



352 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

wands, and, as the air came wafting from the land, it 
brought the odor of the white water hlies, the queen of 
all the water flora. Skirting the osiers we could see the 
sword-grass growing rank beyond, and presently our 
ears heard a splash in the water. A moment more of 
slow drifting motion and we heard the tramp, tramp, of 
some animal wading in the water. A little nearer we 
floated, the rifle in hand and the senses concentrating on 
the grassy marsh. A little nearer, and the eye caught a 
motion. Brighter grew the light as the canoe floated 
up and reddened the grass and reeds, and we caught in 
the darkness ahead a bright, blue light, and then another, 
the reflection from the deer's eyes. Then we heard a 
suppressed snort. Another stroke of the paddle, and a 
deer stood out in the grass, his head thrown up, and his 
eyes shedding pale light. The boat is directed straight 
toward him, and the paddler is as still as a statue. I aimed 
and fired. From beyond the smoke I heard the splashing 
and dashing of water, and a big buck dashed past me, 
and then two others, all rushing ofi" together forfe-belt 6i 
timber that arose close by us on our right. As they 
ascended the bank, I aimed at the hindermost with my 
remaining barrel and fired, and at the sharp ring of the 
rifle he fell back convulsively dead. 

We hastened to the shore, and, carrying with us the 
light from the boat, we found the deer I had first fired 
at, lying with a broken shoulder, just dead, in the high 
grass. The second was lying among the lily pads where 
he had fallen, the ball having passed through the centre 



POKE RECEIVES A CURIOSITY AND TELLS A YAE^. 353 

of bis neck, breaking tbe spine and killing bim instantly^ 
Tbey were both large bucks of six tines, with their horns 
fully grown. It seemed a marvel — something that was 
as supernatural as the weird scene around us — to see 
those two noble beasts that, a moment before, were the 
wildest forest things that range the earth, so still and 
heavy in among the lilies and the sword-grass. 

" Wall, wall, that was purty well done," said Hank. 

But Hank's praise could not lighten the dull leaden 
weight of the stags, nor relieve my mind from the lurk- 
ing impression that the coming by night into these soli- 
tudes, to shoot down two of the lords of the soil while at 
their food, was not the part of a brave man. But what 
is the use of moralizing? Some men sin without 
thought, others with much ; but I opine that the much 
thought don't deter from a repetition of the sin. 

With a good deal of labor we hoisted our two deei 
into the canoe, and paddled home to the sleeping camp, 
and then — 

" Tuck a drink," said Mike, whom we all thought fast 
asleep, from under his arm. 

A drink ! no sir, I was more intoxicated with my 
hunt than a gallon of whisky would have made me. 

" All who believe Poke's story, signify it by saying I." 

" I," said Poke. 

" I'se sure maussa tell fur true 'bout firin' in de stump 
part," suggested Scip. 

The Doctor was displeased, and went off to lift the 
night lines, and the rest of the party to dreams. 



354 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

WOODLAND CHOTwUSES. 

"In the long nights of winter wlien the cold north -wind doth blow 
And the howling of the wolves is heard amid the snow." 

Macaxjlay. 

As we descended the St. Johns River, the water 
scenery gradually enlarged and became more characteris- 
tic. The wider volurae of water set back the forest to a 
farther distance, and not only removed all question of 
Indian bullets, but the change from the heavy woods to 
the open vista made us freer in feelings and more rapid 
in our motions. The boats moved faster, and vrind and 
current in our flivor, with trolling lines astern for sea- 
trout, and the negroes singing their Methodist air — 

" In a few day?, and a few days 
"We're gwine to glory, 
In a few days," 

we rapidly sped northward to our final destination and 
the scenes of civilized life. 

One day wo passed an Indian canoe. Mike said the 
paddler was an Indian, though he looked more like a 
negro, and had a long talk Avith him. They used the 
Indian language and we could not understand them. 



WOODLAND CHORUSES. 355 

though from some names we heard spoken we judged 
then- conversation went back to Tiger Tail. The Indian 
once, we tlionght, mentioned Jackson, and once gave 
the native motion for taking scalps. 

After he was gone Mike seemed moody for a day, and 
then the meeting with the Indian was forgotten. 

The jumping mullet were frequently seen in the waters 
here, and at night we could catch them in abundance in 
our canoes by carrying a torch. They sprung from the 
water toward the light, frequently two or three at a 
time, and fell in the boat, their pearl-colored scales 
glancing and flashing in the torchlight. In some places 
they are called moth-fish from this peculiar instinct. In 
later years the raftsmen on the river availed themselves 
of this habit, and placing lights on the sides of their rafts 
collected quantities of fish that readily leaped the low 
edges of the raft. 

The nights were very dark, and during a portion of the 
time we were descending the river, yet as we were in 
haste to be home, we kept on our way sometimes till late 
in thi3 evening, marking our course by the black line of 
forest that margined the shore. Some of those nights 
were exceedingly solemn. The mystery of the darkness, 
the splash of the leaping fish, the murmnr of frogs and 
moths, the rushing wings of tlie night birds, and now and 
then the heavy bassoon of the alligator, in whose bosom 
the spring of the year had awakened tender recollections 
of his mate, all added to the awe and novelty of our 
voyage. 



S56 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

Sometimes, too, we could hear the plaintive whine of 
the panther or the howlings of wolves, that, scenting us 
from shore, challenged our distant passage that left them 
no bones for their su2:)per. 

These wolves are funny fellows. You would hear one 
howl away down the river just audibly above the insect 
hum. Then an instant's pause, and another answers from 
the opposite shore, and then one close at hand gives a 
yelpish whine as though he had been intending to howl, 
but a bone that he had in his mouth stopped him, until 
he laid the bone down and hurriedly had his howl out. 

We pitched a camp one night at dark in a grove of 
orange trees a little up from the shore with everything 
to make us comfortable. Opossum, venison, fish, and 
doves were hanging before the fire ; the night was dry 
and pleasant, our camp was well located, and we had 
every anticipation of a cheerful night, until the Doctor, 
who never could resist the chance of throwing a line, 
must needs hook a small alligator in the river on his 
night line. It was all very easy as long as the anunal 
was in deep water — he was a caught fish — but the mo- 
ment the Doctor dragged him up to shoal water where 
he could obtain a good footing, then the Doctor was 
caught, and had either to be pulled in the river or let the 
line pay out and the brute get back to four fathom 
water. 

Soon we heard a call for help, and, after a number 
of facetious suggestions oifered and refused, one of the 
negroes paddled out a few yards, and, when the animal 



WOODLAND CnOEUSES. 357 

came up to the surface, put a rifle to his head and killed 
him. 

The hook was cut out of his mouth, and the body 
floated down the river a few yards, and, as we learned in 
the morning, lodged against the bank. 

The discomfort of the Doctor's fishery now became ap- 
parent. Supper being dispatched, every one rolled over, 
pulling off his boots for a pillow, or laying his head on 
his arm. The first sleeper had just begun to emit the 
first hoarse breathing which a listener would call a snore 
and the sleeper would swear was not, when we heard, 
"Ah-ha — whoo-a-whoo-oo-oo !" from a little way down 
shore. " Bow-ow-ow-owe-owe !" said every dog in the 
camp, in different tones of shrillness, depending upon the 
acidity of their tempers. Up on end came every sleeper. 

" What's that ?" quoth I.. 

" Cuss the wolves !" quoth Mike. 

" Dar's a prime psalm singer, settin' the tune," quoth 
Scip. 

" Cause he settin' tune, yer mussent kick around like 
all afire," quoth Caesar, holding on to his shin, that some 
one had kicked. 

" "Wag, here Wag, doii*t go there !" called the Doctor 
to his cur, that had not the least intention of venturing 
beyond the circle of the fire-light. 

Everybody turned over ; wolves are never dangerous, 
unless to your provisions, and in a moment more thei-e 
was silence and a sound of strangulation from the Doc- 
torthat foreboded hisprofoundest sleep, when " Ooh-ooh- 



358 WILD 6P0KTS m THE SOUTH. 

ooough," came the old note, followed by the rush of the 
dogs and the same series of questionings and y awnings 
and objurgations. 

There seemed to be a concert near us ; for the moment 
one wolf would get tired, another would take up the 
refrain until it was soon aj)parent that there was no more 
sleep for that night. 

"We only took cat naps, eating a little now and then 
and sometimes taking a drink, talking, conjuring up all 
the old stories of wolves that we had ever heard or read 
of, good bad and indifferent, they were all repeated, 
— wolf had no mercy shown him that night. If he could 
have understood our language I am sure he would have 
howled louder in anger at the character we gave him 
than ever he did in hunger or melancholy. 

Mike's opinion of him was that he was a " dratted 
mean cuss, leered to hunt deer alone and fodderin' on his 
own young ones when he can't ketch nothin' else." 

The negro boys entertained the belief that the lumin- 
ous appearance from their eyes at night arose from their 
feasting on the slain in battle, and a suspicion that they 
sometimes visited grave-yards for other purposes than 
pensive meditations. ""^ • 

The Doctor told how that the power of a wolf's jaw 
was greater than that of any animal — that it had a power 
of, I have forgotten how many hundred pounds, and 
something about his facial muscles that no one under^ 
stood. 

I told the following story of an adventure. It don't 



WOODLAND CHOEUSES. 359 

seem now half as natural as when the wolves were howl- 
ing an accompaniment, but it is true, nevertheless. 

THE WOLF CHASE. 

During the winter of 1834, being engaged in running 
a line in the Aroostook country in the northern part of 
Maine, I had much leisure to devote to wild sports. 
To none of these was I more passionately addicted ihan 
to skating. The deep and sequestered lakes of" this 
State, frozen by the intense cold of the northern winter, 
present a wide field to the lovers of this pastime. Often 
would I bind on my skates, and glide away up the glit- 
tering river, and wind each mazy streamlet that flowed 
beneath its fetters on toward the parent ocean, forgetting 
all the while, time and distance in the luxurious sense of 
the gliding motion, thinking of nothing in the easy flight, 
but rather dreaming as I looked through the transparent 
ice at the long weeds and cresses that nodded in the cur- 
rent beneath and seemed wrestling with the V\-aves to let 
them go ; or I would follow on the track of some fox or 
otter, and run my skate along the mark he had left with 
his dragging 4:ail until thp^rail would enter the woods. 
Sometimes these excursions were made by moonlight, 
and it was oli one of these occasions that I had a rencon- 
tre, which even now in a -svarm climate and with kind 
faces and bright fires around me, I cannot recall without 
a nervous looking-over-my-shoulder feeling. 

*' I had left my friend's house one evening just before 



360 WILD 6P0ETS IN THE SOUTH. 

dusk, with the intention of skating a short distance up 
the Kennebec, which glided directly before the door. 
The night was beautifully clear. A peerless moon rode 
through an occasional fleecy cloud, and stars twmkled 
from the sky and from every frost-covered tree in mil- 
lions, and the great zone of the milky way and the lucid 
planets were all copied in the mirror-like ice, till your 
foot seemed treading the jewelled vault of heaven. 
Your mind would wonder at the light that came glint- 
iug from ice, and snow wreath, and incrusted branches, 
as the eye followed for miles the broad gleam of the 
Kennebec, and like a satin ribbon wound between the 
dark forests that bound it. And yet all was still. The 
cold seemed to have frozen tree and air, and water, and 
every living thing that moved. Even the ringing of my 
skates on the ice echoed back from the Moccasin Hill 
with a startling clearness, and the crackle of the ice as I 
passed over it in my course, seemed to follow the tide of 
the river v/ith lightning speed. 

" I had gone up the river nearly two miles, when, 
coming to a little stream which empties into the larger, 
I turned in to explore its course. Fir and hemlock of a 
century's growth met overhead, and formed an archway 
radiant with frost-work. All was dark within, but I was 
young and fearless, and as I peered into an unbroken 
forest that mirrored itself on the borders of the stream, I 
laughed with joyousness, my wild hurrah rang through 
the silent woods, and I stood listening to the echo that 
reverberated again and again, until all was hushed. I 



WOODLAND CHORUSES. 361 

thought how often the Indian hnnter had concealed 
himself behind these very trees, how often his arrow had 
pierced the deer by this very stream, and his wild halloo 
had here rmig for his victory. And then, turning from 
fancy to reality, I watched a couple of white owls, that sat 
m their hooded state, with ruffled pantalettes and long 
eartabs, debating in silent conclave the affiiirs of their 
frozen realm, and was wondering if they, " for all their 
feathers, were a-cold," when suddenly a sound arose ; it 
seemed to me to come from beneath the ice. It sounded 
low and tremulous at first, until it ended in a prolonged 
yell. I was appalled. Never before had such a noise 
met my ears. It seemed more than mortal, so fierce, and 
amid such an unbroken solitude, as if a fiend had blown 
a blast from an infernal trumpet. Presently I heard the 
twigs on shore snap, as if from the tread of some animal, 
and the blood rushed back to my forehead with a bound 
that made my skin burn, and I felt relieved that I had 
to contend with things earthly, and not of S2:)iritual 
nature ; my energies returned, and I looked around me 
for some means of escape. The moon shone through 
the opening at the mouth of the creek by which I 
had entered the forest, and considering this the best 
course, I darted toward it like an arrow. 'Twas 
hardly a hundred yards distant, and the swallow could 
scarcely excel ray desperate flight ; yet as I turned my 
head to the shore, I could see tv/o dark objects dashing 
through the underbush at a pa(3e nearly double in speed 
to my own. By this great speed, and the short yells 

16 



8G2 "SYILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

wliich they occasionally gave, I knew at once that theso 
\Yerc the mnch dreaded white wolf. 

" I had never met with these animals, but from the 
description given of them, I had but little pleasui'e in 
making their acquaintance. Their untamable fierceness 
and the untiring strength which seems part of their 
nature, render them objects of dread to every benighted 
traveller. 

" Yfitli their long gallop, which can tire 
The Deer-hound's hate, the hunter's fire," 

they pursue their prey — never straying from the track 
of their victim — and as the wearied hunter thinks he has 
at last outstripped them, he finds that they but waited for 
the evening to seize their prey, and falls a prize to their 
tireless cunning. 

*' The bushes that skirted the shore flew past with the 
velocity of lightning, as I dashed on in my flight to pass 
the narrow opening. The outlet was nearly gained ; one 
second more, and I would be comparatively safe, when 
my pursuers appeared on the bank directly above me, 
wliich here rose to the height often feet. There was no 
time for thought, so I bent my bead and dashed madly 
forward. The wolves sprang, but miscalculating my 
speed, sprang behind, while their intended prey glided 
out upon the river. 

" Nature turned me toward home. The light flakes 
of snow spun from the iron of my skates, and I was some 
distance from my pursuers, when their fierce howl told me 



WOODLAND CHOEUSES. 363 

I "^as still their fugitive. I did not look back, I did not 
feoi afraid, or sorry, or glad ; one thought of home, of the 
bright faces awaiting my return, of their tears, if they 
should never see me, and then every energy of body 
and mind was exerted for escape. I was perfectly at 
home on the ice. Many were the days that I spent on 
my good skates, never thinking that at one time they 
would be my only means of safety. Every half minute 
an alternate yelp from my fierce attendants made me 
but too certain that they were in close pursuit. Nearer 
and nearer they came ; I heard their feet pattering on 
the ice — nearer still, until I could feel their breath and 
hear their snuffing scent. Every nerve and muscle in my 
frame was stretched to the utmost tension. 

" The trees along the shore seemed to dance in the 
uncertain light, and my brain turned with my own 
breathless speed, yet still they seemed to aspirate 
their breath close in my ears, when an involuntary 
motion on my part turned me out of my course. The 
wolves close behind, unable to stop, and as unable to 
turn on the smooth ice, slipped and fell, still going on 
far ahead ; their tongues w^ere lolling out, their white 
tusks glaring from their bloody mouths, their dark, 
shaggy breasts were fleeced with foam, and as they 
passed me they glared, and they howled with fury. The 
thought flashed on my mind, that by this means I could 
avoid them, viz., by turning aside whenever they came 
too near ; for they, by the formation of their feet, are 
unable to run on ice except on a straight line. 



S6i WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 

" I immediately acted upon this plan. The wolves 
having regained their feet, sprang directly toward me. 
The race was renewed for twenty yards up the stream : 
they were already close at my back, when I glided 
round and dashed directly past my pursuers. A fierce 
yell greeted my evolution, and the wolves, slipping upon 
their haunches, sailed onward, j^resenting a perfect pic- 
ture of helplessness and baffled rage. Thus I gained 
nearly a hundred yards at each turning. This was 
repeated two or three times, every moment the animals 
getting more excited and baffled. 

" At one time, by delaying my turniug too long, my 
antagonists came so near that they threw the white 
foam over my dress as they sprang to seize me, and 
their teeth clashed together like the spring of a fox-trap. 
Had my skates failed for one instant, had I tripped on a 
stick, or caught my foot in a fissure in the ice, the story 
I am now telling would never have been told. I thought 
all the chances over ; I knew where they would first take 
hold of me if I fell ; I thought how long it would be 
before I died, and when there would be a search for the 
body that would already have its tomb ; for oh ! how 
fast man's mind traces out all the dead colors of death's 
picture, only those who have been near the grim origi- 
nal can tell. 

" But soon I came opposite the house, and my hounds 
— I knew their deep voices — roused by the noise, bayed 
furiously from the kennels. I heard their chains rattle ; 
how I wished they would break them, and then I would 



WOODLAND CHORUSES. 6^0 

have tried * turn about is fair play.' The wolves, taking 
the hint conveyed by the dogs, stopped, and after a 
moment's consideration, turned and fled. I watched 
them until theii' dusky forms disappeared over a neigh- 
boring hill. Then, taking ofi" my skates, limped up to 
the house, half cured of romance in the woods and tired 
of the name of wolf 

*'But even yet, I never see a broad sheet of ice in the 
moonshine without thinking of that fetid, snuffling 
breath, and those fearful things that followed me so 
closely down the frozen Kennebec." 

As the tale ended, an unseen auditor, who from his 
covert in the bushes was indignant at my account of his 
people, yelped out, Oo, who-oo, who — oo— o — ah, aigh. , 

" Hear the vowels," said the Doctor, " a, e, i, o, u, and 
sottietimes w and y. 

"Drat the cuss!" quoth Mike, throwing a blazing 
knot into the bushes, "has he got no decency ?" 



366 WILD 6POET3 IN THE BOUTH. 



CHAPTER XXY. 

LIFE IN THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 

" The rocky ledge runs far into the sea, 
And on its outer point, some miles away 
The Light-house lifts its massive masonry, 
A pillar of fire by night, a cloud by day 

" The startled waves leap over it ; the storm 
Smites it with all the scourges of the rain ; 
And steadily against its solid form 
Press the great shoulders of the hurricane." 

Far to the southward of what has been the scene of 
our story, forming one of the barriers between the s^dy 
coast of Florida and the surging Atlantic, lies Key Bis- 
cayne. Southward still, innumerable little islands of 
white sand show their backs above the tide, and then 
Key Largo, Indian Key, and Key West, sweep in a 
curve around the point of the continent, warding off with 
their coral arms the blows of the angry Atlantic, and 
the soft allurements of the Gulf Stream. To the west- 
ward on the main land stretches from ocean to ocean the 
labyrinth of the Everglades . 

There were no permanent settlers in this country a 
few years ago, though at Key West was congregated a 
reckless company of men whose boats found shelter from 



LIFE nr THE LIGHT-HOUSE. £67 

the storms among the islands, and who gained a liveli- 
hood from the shipwrecked vessels that monthly dashed 
to i^ieces on the coast. Most of them were desperate 
men, without famiUes, only cultivating the soil to plant 
cocoa and plantain trees, and relying upon the sea for the 
supply of their wants. Their low craft could bo seen 
among the innumerable reefs at the beginning of every 
storm, like sea-gulls foreboding the tempest, and hover- 
ing for its waifs. 

In the interior of the peninsula the Indian still remained 
secure in his morass, and from Key Biscayne at times 
his camp-fires could be seen bright against the midnight 
sky. 

The only thing that was human on the coast, contrast- 
ing with tlie cruel shore and the more cruel wreckers, 
w^the light-house on the Key. The great charity reared 
Itself between the howling wilderness and the beating 
surges, an oriflamme over the strife. It stood on a jut 
of beach at the lower end of the island, where the 
palmetto trees dried out in the sand, and only the long 
sword-grass grew around in scattered spears. A boat 
with a mast lay on the shingle, and a log canoe, and close 
by the light stood a little low white house, with two 
square windows and a door toward the sea, and two 
square windows and a door toward the bay. A tiny 
porch covered each doorway, and the little windows 
were opened and closed by heavy wooden shutters. The 
only vegetation near the light was one tall, twisted cocoa- 
tree, whose tuft of heavy leaves were so high in air they 



36S WILD SPOKTS IN THE SOUTH. 

formed no slielter from the sun, but crackled with a 
shardy sound, and when the Avind blew fresh from sea, 
from time to time the tree loosened one of its large 
cocoa-nuts from its stem, letting it fill to the ground 
Avith the thud of a cannon-ball. 

The prospect to the eye from the lantern on the tower 
was a Aveary stretch of sand islands betAveen the sea and 
the bay, and beyond the bay the desolation of limitless 
swamps. Hea\y surges beat on the shore, long hot days 
made the land glimmer in the mirage, and the tower and 
the little house cowered before the breaker, or danced 
in the white heat. 

Here Lou Jackson had come, and with her father's 
bi-other Avas living in the house and keeping the light. 

It is difficult to explain the motives that in some per- 
sons lead to their course of life. The human heart is not 
alike in all, and Avords that are meaningless to one fa"on 
another like blows, and acts that are ordinary to one's 
standard are monstrous to another's. Analyze most of 
our acts, those that are disconnected from sudden, tran- 
sient impulses, and we will find at the bottom of the re- 
tort a deposit of pride that would color the Avhole solu- 
tion. It may be unsuspected — it certainly is to the 
extent discovered, but our words are couched in its lan- 
guage and many of our acts — all of those in ]3ublic — are 
under its stern Avill. "Shall Z yield?" says Pride, em- 
phasizing the personal pronoun, and refuses what the 
heart would have granted. " Shall Isiccept a favor from 
these people who ought to be no more capable of giving 



LIFE IN THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 369 

favors than I?" and avoids and declines just what the ^ 
judgment says is needed. "ShalJ I let him know I love 
him, and overtly respond to advances he has been mak- 
ing ?" and the pride acts a lie, leaving the soul longing, 
sighing, hoping for that other soul that was abashed, and 
has departed. 

Lou had a little foot, and it was laced over its high 
arch w^ith an Indian moccasin. The wrought buckskin 
became the foot, as the foot was tapping the uppermost 
step in the lantern, while its owner, wdth her arm on 
the window-sill, sat looking seaward. Here was her 
accustomed seat as the sun fired the everglades at his sit- 
ting, and left the ocean still as a child tired with his 
romping, and every evening, for the month that she had 
lived at the Key, found her in the same spot dreaming 
^^MY the twilight, and when it was dark brightening the 
eyes of the passing mariners w^ith the expectant flash of 
the great lantern. 

The spits of sand that ran up and down along the coast 
were margined with little rollers that broke in foam along 
their seaAvard side, and then fell back to renew the 
attempt, w^iile doewitches and sand-pipers with nimble 
tread pursued them back and forth. The blue line of the 
horizon, where it cut the roseate sky, was marked by the 
sail of a ship. It w^as not the ways of the shore birds 
that Lou was watching ; her mind w^as not following the 
path of the ship. She was conning over her past few 
years of life. Figures came up to her misty eyes, dead 
friends, and other homes, strong men, and patches of 

16* 



870 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

wood, and camp-fires, and old longings. There were 
tears in her eyes, and her foot ceased to tap the iron 
step, and she leaned more over her arm and looked 
harder out to sea. Then appeared her lonely life, and 
the wild imas^ininsjs and romances it had created, and 
her form straightened again. Her short lip curled, and 
the tears dried up. 

She thought of her wealthy kinsfolk in the States, and 
how with haughtiness she had thrown back their proffers 
of assistance and sympathy. She thought of her ov\'n 
active life, her self-educated tastes, her superiority to her 
sex of the same age, not boastiugly, not extravagantly, 
but proudly and justly. Old dreams of ambition and ro- 
mance came over her soul, dreams that had been dreamt 
and re-dreamt, and had awakened — old foncies of a des- 
perate, whole-souled love, proud as her own, that w^to 
meet her own and make surrender — that was to woo, 
plead, strive, and die for her, and be accepted. She 
tnought of Mike, and in her daring mood as she Avas, the 
patient, gentle, watchful hunter was swept away with a 
rush of scorn. Too timid to dare for her, too careless to 
plead for her, too simple for an ideal, his love was the lik- 
ings of a man, but no love for such as her. A man that she 
ccTuldn't understand at times, a man that was too cautious 
to praise, too weak to dare anything for her, even a refusal 
— out on such a man ! The consciousness of a secret likins^ 
that had made her leave Mike so hastily at Bonda Key 
when he had proffered the cat-skin, made her pride re- 
volt and her scornincr the bitterer. Then she was too 



LIFE IN THE LIGHT-nOUSE. 371 

proud to let hira come nearer her because slie was the 
daughter of a planter, and he a vagrant hunter. Xow 
she was too proud even to think of him, for she was the 
child of misfortune, poor, and an orphan. It needs but 
a little excuse to let the proud heart work out its will. 
Lou Jackson had shown it rich and poor all the more 
because she could not rid herself of that unconfessed re'- 
gard. There were other men that were bolder than 
Mike. The dark eyes that had flashed to her at St. 
Augustine, the ready tongue and fair Avords, were they 
not the signals of a higher life and warmer heart ? Had 
this immense world no life and form in it that was per- 
fect to her ideal? 

" Fool — ^fool ! I am a fool !" she said aloud, springing 
upon her feet. Taking a cloth from a locker, she began 
polishing the reflectors of the light, whistling some old 
air between the pauses of her duty. 

" Donald, isn't it time to light up ?" presently called 
her voice from the gallery of the lantern. 

"Yes," answered her uncle from below, scanning the 
horizon with a long look to note tlie gathering shadows. 

In a moment more it was dark, and the sailor pacing 
his watch on the ship in the ofiing called from the fore- 
castle deck to the mate : " Cape Florida light, sir, on the 
port bow, ten miles away." 



372 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

TRACKING THE ENEMY. 

" For it is with feelings as with waters— 
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb," 

"Nine Iiijins raid no squaws," quoth Mike, seating 
himself on one of the rolUng sand hills that border 
Indian Kivei-, a little south of Cape Carnaveral, after a 
long examination of the surrounding shores. 

On the same evening that we pitched our camp on the 
well-marked trail leading from the St. Johns River across 
to St. Augustine, Mike had disappeared. He had given 
no notice of his intention, unless the 23urchase of powder 
and hall from a trader camping at the same place might 
have been a notice. The place where he slept at the fire 
was vacant, and the dun hound and heavy rifle had dis- 
appeared with their owner. 

We were safe from all doubt as to our course, and 
from all danger, for St. Augustine was but sixteen miles 
away, but we speculated much on the cause of the sud- 
den flight. Had the trader or his men given him any 
bad news ? No, they were only talking of the wars, of 
Tiger Tail's forays, and how the troops were drawing 
down in concert to destroy the Indians or drive them 



TEACKma THE ENEMY. 373 

southward. We thought at first he had gone over to 
the town, but a missing canoe showed he had taken to 
the water. AYe mentally bade him farewell, and started 
over to the Spanish town of St. Augustine, and were 
soon pacing its narrow streets, under the moss-grown 
walls of the old fort, builded, as saith its inscription, by 
Field Marshal Don Alonzo Fernando Hereda, of noble 
fame. 

In three days Mike stood under the moss-grown walls 
of the cypress trees that bastion the southern shores of 
Lake George, builded and mossed when Hereda's fort 
was in the quarry. He had retraced the course he had 
brought us in descending the river. Over the broad 
water of Lake George he passed like a gull before a 
northerly wind, holding up his blanket for a sail, and 
made the orange tree j^oint where the St. Johns enters 
the lake from the southward. 

Following the St. Johns beyond Lake Monroe, he 
passed in the night, and unobserved, the company of 
soldiers we met in descending the river. Their camp- 
fire was bright on the beach, and he could hear the sen- 
tries challenge as they marched to and fro under the 
stately trees, according to what Mike thought their 
unnecessarily ostentatious rules of camp government. 

'' Ilulloain' like that in the woods when they ought to 
be hidin' away," said he to himself, as he noiselessly 
floated by ; " that's all some folks knows." 

Mike was like a good many quiet people — he liked his 
own company, and would talk to himself, little by little, 



374: -WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

in disconnected sentences, even when he refused to talk 
to any one else. The many days he passed alone 
encouraged the habit. 

Thence still np the St. Johns, through all its winding 
course, he paddled, warily Avatching the shore and water, 
and often visiting either bank to look for signs. Where- 
ever there was a bend in the river he kept close to the 
point around which the curve made, creeping around so 
slowly and cautiously that his eye took in all the reach 
of the river ahead before he could himself be discovered. 
He visited many old Indian camps, wandering around 
them, looking for little signs indicating the intention 
their occupants had at parting. Wherever there was a 
trail across the river he seemed to know or divine it, 
approached it warily, and only left it after a careful scru- 
tiny. 

When he built a fire to cook his food, it was made 
back from the river, and the fire was lit of the driest 
twigs, so that it raised jio smoke, and at leaving he 
covered it over with ashes, and stamped out the murk 
his rifle had made in the sand. Sometimes he would not 
let his dog come ashore, or if he did, carefully rubbed 
out the tracks of his feet. He did not travel at night, 
unless in the early part of the evening, and never struck 
a light after dark, but carrying his canoe on shore, filled 
it with moss, and laid down in it with his dog at his 
side. 

At the far upper end of the St. Johns, after the 
explorer has passed through innumerable expansion-like 



TEACKING THE ENEMY. 375 

lakes, and crossed the beautiful waters of Lake Poinsett, 
he will find the St. Johns winding and twisting, over- 
flowing the prairie here in shallow marshes, and running 
off into deep long tributary lagoons, fringed Avith canes, 
reeds, and flags of the most graceful shapes and dense 
growth. Some of the canes totter over, leaning their 
tall tips against the others for support, and so they reach 
entirely across the narrow creeks, shutting out the sun and 
ail-, and leaving the boatman to push his canoe as through 
a sewer. One such branch of the St. Johns turned 
eastward and reached nearly to the coast. ^ This was the 
course taken by the Indians when making their journeys 
from the interior to the sea, and it carried them so near 
Indian River, a broad inlet of the sea that margins the 
Atlantic, that they had but a very short carry to get 
across. Mike was following this outlet. lie had seen 
old fires a day or two back, and thought them, judging 
by the brands, about as old as the intervaV of time which 
he had taken to reach there after Tiger Tail had passed, 
providing the chief had come this way immediately after 
visiting Lake George. 

Mike examined the narrow passage up which he was 
paddling with the instinct of a tracker without any posi- 
tive signs, merely led on by his suspicion, mayhap by his 
heart. Every scratch on the canes he noticed, and float- 
ing bits of wood he picked up from the water to look at 
them, and then toss them back again. ^Yhere a flag had 
been broken, and half withered hung from its stem, 
he floated past with upraised paddle, calculating the 



376 WILD SPORTS IK THE SOUTH. 

number of days it would take a flag to wither that 
much. 

At length a dint in the oozy bank he marked as made 
by the blade of a paddle, and marked it so exactly that 
when he saw another on the same bank he knew they 
were the blades of different paddles, and that there were 
more boats than one that had recently preceded him. 
By the inclination of the hole in the mud, he knew the 
direction of the stroke, and therefore the way the pad- 
dlers who left the marks were going. When there was 
an opening i^^ the reeds he would raise himself to his feet 
and look out on the flatlands, watching the birds to see 
if they would indicate by their flight or their cries 
passers in the desert. 

"Where the creek ran out, the scout examined warily 
the landing. There were no marks or signs of any kind. 
He watched long and closely, but could see not a token 
that a footstep had been there for a month. 

"Queer, that!" ho said, and paddling back a little 
to an out-of-the-way elbow, pulled in his canoe in the 
reeds, and stepped ashore, leaving his hound tied in 
the boat. He then crossed over from the low land to 
the higher rolling sand of the coast, but found no signs 
of passers. Extending his walk a couple of miles down, 
he came upon footsteps plainly marked in the sand, 
going from west to east. 

"Ha!" said he, coming to a halt, and bringing his 
hand to the cock of his rifle. His eyes followed the 
signs back and forth, and he smiled drily. He felt the 



TEACKING THE ENEMY. 877 

compliment to himself, imj^lied in the pains taken by the 
savages to conceal their trail. 

"Tried to dodge — landed back and walked around. 
Somethin's up — wouldn't have been so pertickalar ef 
they'd been actin' honest." 

The hunter followed the trail both back to the lagoon, 
or a branch of it, where they had left the ordinary course 
for secrecy, and then over the sands till where the foot- 
ste2:>s faded out in the ripples of Indian River. 

" Seven days out, jist !" said he, musingly. " Scratchin' 
along fast." 

Seating himself on the sandy hillock, among the rough 
swaying grass, he mused on the thoughts suggested by 
the trail, and after a very long silence again repeated 
with a sigh, looking southward — " Nine Injins and no 
squaws — that means mischief." 

The soft haze was ever the landscape, and the cabbage 
trees on the distant beach loomed up like inverted moun- 
tains. The ripples on the sand whispered softly, and 
the air was burdened with the exhalations of the opening 
year. 

Mike laid off his cap and drew back his matted curls, 
leaving his forehead open to the caressing air. " ScA^en 
days," he said. *' Wall, seven days are a deal of time, 
and what's wrong done, is done bein' helped. I might 
as well go over and see. Somehow or nother, it don't 
seem nateral for that critter to come this way. Ef he's 
runnin' from the soldiers he'd gone west ; he knows too 
much to be bothered by them. He's sent off the women 



378 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

folks for no good, but it mayn't be he's goin' so far. 
She'll thmk I'm s'pectm' clanger -Nvhen there ain't 
none. 

*' Wall, wall I might as well be clown thar. She won't 
be any the worse for my bein' nigh her. Poor child, 
poor cliild ! And ef thar's nobody about, why I can 
come away again without her knowin' it. It does a 
fellar good to know she is near, and maybe it will turn 
up as times go she may need me." 

That night, Mike with his dog slept among some wil- 
lows, kindling his fire from the half-burned brands that 
bad served before to cook the food and dry the mocca- 
sins of the band he was pursuing. It seemed as if a sort 
of instinct guided him on the trail. One day he might 
not see it at all. Travelling, as they both were, by 
canoes, there were no signs left save where landings had 
been made to cook or sleep, or to carry over the little 
portages, the traversing of which so shortened the route 
between Indian River and Jupiter Inlet. But it was the 
knowledge of native character that guided the pursuer. 
He could tell on his day's journey just where such a 
band, impelled by Indian cunning, would land to con- 
ceal their fire. Had they been running carelessly, land- 
ing where accident led them, their course would have 
been more difficult of detection, but Mike was tracking 
them mentall}^, more by reason than by a trail percepti- 
ble to the eye, and as he ran his canoe to the beach, it 
would sometimes strike on the very footprints of the 
savages, and the hunter would give his satisfied ejacula- 



TEACKING THE ENEMY. 3T9 

tion of " ha !" and quietly sit down to his meal without 
further examination. 

Mike travelled faster than his predecessors. When he 
carried his canoe over the portage connecting Jupiter 
Inlet with the next creek to the southward, and ex- 
amined the tracks where they had not been drifted over 
with the sand, he smiled, saying — " Gained a day." 
Presently his dog dug up from the sand a broken pad- 
dle. Mike patted the hound, and examining the paddle, 
knew why they had travelled so slowly that day; and a 
little search showed some shavings where a new one had 
been cut. His suspicions as to the leadership of the band 
and the direction they Avere taking had become confirmed, 
little by little, and he now baked his corn-bread, and 
rolled himself to sleep on his Spartan couch, satisfied to 
a certainty that his journey was not a needless one. 

A boat is usually sent by the government, at regular 
intervals, to visit the different light-houses of the United 
States coast, and supply them with stores. Such a visit 
had just been made to the light-house at Cape Florida. 
Two barrels of oil, provisions for the light-keeper, a little 
powder and Bhot, some tools, cordage and oakum, a few 
fishing implements, 'and some books that had been sent 
for Lou Jackson, had been delivered and were lying in 
front of the little house, and the w^bite sails of the 
schooner Avere again low on the horizon, leaving the 
light-house keeper and his niece to another month of 
solitude. 

Lou's uncle was busily engaged storing the goods, some 



380 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

in the house and some in the light-house, and the girl 
was in the lanterji with a book on her knees and her eye 
wandering away along the reaches of the shore and of 
the past. The evening was lull, and even the gulls had 
settled down on the waters of the bay. Presently her 
eye caught a motion from over the palmetto bushes that 
ran down the island, and she watched for the cause. In 
a moment she saw a naked Indian creeping over the 
sands, running from a clump of bushes to one nearer the 
house. The fellow Avas painted vermilion and black, 
and from his gaudy color and crouching motion, looked 
like a leopard more than a man. Lou was not so igno- 
rant of Indian ways but that she knew in an instant the 
meaning of the Avar paint and the subtile approach that 
never could have been seen from below. The blood 
rushed to her heart Avith a bound, and then her thoughts 
Avere as cool as before. This had not been a totally 
imforeseen contingency, and they had discussed the course 
to be folloAved, and had prepared for it in a measure. 
The door of the light-house had been made heavy and 
strong, and the arrangements in the upper story had 
been such that a person would find it a comparative 
shelter. 

Lou leaned over the rail and called to her uncle in her 
ordinary voice, " Uncle !" 

"Well, child?" 

" Look up here, uncle." 

The old man leaned over the coil of ropes he had in 
his hand, and looked up at the lantern. 



TKACKING THE ENEMY. 381 

"Don't move fast," said she, in a measured voice, 
" but come into the tower quietly ; there are Indians in 
the pahnetto bushes." 

The uncle was not capable of self-control. He cast a 
hasty look around him, dropped the coil of rope, and ran 
to the light-house. It was well for him the door stood 
open wide, for as he ran a ringing shot came from the 
palmettoes, the bullet cutting his jacket, and another shot 
from another covert shattered a pane of glass beside 
Lou Jackson, and from every side broke out the war 
whoop, while half a dozen savages, whooping with their 
hands to their mouths, sprang from the palmetto bushes, 
and rushed across tlie opening to intercept the fugitive. 

The old man slipped in, slamming and bolting the 
heavy door behind him, and was safe. The savages 
crowded up against the doorway, as an angry wave 
would sometimes do on a stormy night, and then fell 
back with tumult and sullen roar, baffled for the nonce. 



383 WILD sroRTS m the south. 



CHAPTER XXVn. 

SMOKIXG OUT THE ENEMY. 

" The creeping tide came up along the sand, 
And o'er and o'er the sand, 
And round and round the sand, 
As far as eye could see ; 
The blinding mist came do-vrn and hid the laud 
And never home came she." 

KlNGSLEY. 

It was evening when Donald Laidlaw, Lou's uncle, 
effected his escape into the light-house, and the next 
morning found the two prisoners in the upper floor, 
vainly seeking to spy out their foes, who had disappeared 
like the uncouth shapes of a dream. The prisoners had 
listened and waited all night long, but there was no 
sound on the air but the low wash of the sea, and 
nothing could be discerned from the apertures of the 
tower save the sand and the trailing gleam of the lan- 
tern on the ocean. 

Hour by hour glided by in perfect hush. The como- 
rants flew past to their daily fishery, the gulls came in 
from sea, and the shore birds ran in and out with the 
ebbing tide as they were wont to do. Laidlaw emerged 
out on the upper floor of the light-house, and turned out 
tbe lamp, cautiously peering about him. He saw the 



SMOKING OUT THE ENEMY. Obd 

goods strewn on the sand, just as they had left them, 
and the half-open door of the cottage still ajar. He 
descended again to the tower and told what he had 
seen ; but his escape from the enemy had been so narrow 
on the previous evening, and Lou's knowledge of Indian 
character was so good that they concluded it was far 
from safe to venture out of their place of refuge. So 
they opened a bag of biscuit and made a frugal meal, 
from time to time peeping out of the crevices between 
the plastering and the floor above, and then turning 
again to each other to talk or dream away the day. 

Noon had long passed when they became con- 
scious of some one calling from below, and saw an 
Indian standing in front of the house, waving a white 
rag, and indicating by his motions a desire to speak. 
Laidlaw mounted the steps to the platform on which the 
light was placed, and which extended some distance 
over the tower, and moving cautiously to the edge in 
such a manner that only his head was exposed to obser- 
vation fi'om below, called out to the Indian to inquire 
his message. 

" Indian Avants to talk." 

" Well, what is it ? Go on," answered Laidlaw. 

" Indian is going away — he wants peace. Indian will 
do no harm. Give him one blanket and he goes." 

*' Why did you fire at me last evening ?" 

" Indian was wrong — Indian much drink — Indian is 
sorry. Give Indian one blanket." 

The savage held up one finger to denote the smallness 



384: WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

of his wants, and his other hand he pressed to his breast. 
His face was free of paint, and he carried no arms and 
spoke very pleasantly, and with a graceful gesture. 

" What shall we do, Louisa ?" asked the uncle, turn- 
ing around to the trap-door, through which his niece's 
head appeared, as she listened attentively to the conver- 
sation. 

" Tell him to take the blanket and go. We will see. if 
he will do it." 

Laidlaw told the Indian, who, after a pause, replied : 
" Indian can't take blanket — say Indian stole blanket." 

" Uncle, it is all a cheat. Look out for them," whis- 
pered Lou. 

" No, we will not come out to bid you good bye. 
Take the goods you want and be off." 

The Indian seemed disappointed, judging from his 
manner as he turned on his heel and disappeared in the 
bushes, while the old man descended to the securer 
retreat of the tower. 

The light-house in which Lou and her uncle were 
entrenched, was the ordinary columnar-shaped edifice 
that may be seen at intervals all along the coast at the 
present time. It was built of unhewn stone, to the height 
of about six feet from the sand, and then of concrete — a 
composition of broken shell and mortar — for forty feet 
more, slightly decreasing in size until within a few feet of 
the top, when it suddenly expanded to receive the bell- 
shaped lantern of glass that covered the lamps. 

Under this lantern was constructed a stone piaiform. 



SMOKING OUT THE ENEMY. 385 

overlaying the tower, and extending out till it formed a 
narrow ledge, and a single hand rail ran round its exte- 
rior edge, so that the light-keei^er could walk the out- 
side, polish the glasses, and keep undimraed the light. 
In the lantern stood the lamps on a pedestal, with their 
metal reflectors, a can of oil and a bundle of waste, for 
polishing. 

At the base of the tower, and on the side from the sea, 
was a heavy oaken door, entrance to which was gained 
by a little flight of stairs, and the door was placed above 
the stone work, so as to be free from any extraordinary 
tides. On the level with the door in the tower was a 
pile of stores of divers kinds, some provisions and some 
necessary implements for the station. From this a wind- 
ing stairs of wood ran up to the narrow opening that led 
to the lantern. 

When Lou and her uncle took refuge from the savages, 
they remained at the bottom of the tower, reclining on 
the cordage or bales, save as they were occupied in try- 
in 2: to make discoveries of the savasres throu^'h the nar- 

O O CD 

row windows that here and there were cut, like arrow 
slits, into the walls for the purpose of light. It was hither 
they descended when the unsuccessful Indian diplomatist 
departed, and they were left once more to their own 
anxious expectations, and to the renewed machinations 
of their foes. 

It was not a great while they had to wait before they 
he,ard on the exterior the guttural voices of the savages, 
add^felt the door vibrating under their tests of its 

n 



386 WILD SPORTS m the south. 

strength. Presently they heard heavy blows as though 
from a stick of timber, and then the sharp rap of a 
hatchet. Laidlaw started np, and arming himself with 
the only weapon he possessed, an old fowling-piece, pre- 
pared to do battle when the door should no longer be a 
security. Lou retreated up the steps toward the lantern. 
But the door was of live oak, studded with nails, and the 
Indians did not care to risk their hatchets on so stern a 
material, and even the blows of the timber presently 
ceased, the assailants finding it difficult to make their 
battering ram work effectively from the narrow platform 
afforded by the steps on the exterior. 

The prisoners congratulated themselves on their 
security, and again seating themselves on the cordage, 
renewed their council, and even jested upon the futile 
attempts of their enemies. An hour or more had passed 
away in most perfect quietness, and saving the occasional 
visits to the loop-holes of the tower, Lou had relapsed 
into a dreamy state of half wakefulness, while her uncle, 
with the caution of years, sat close to the door-way with 
his duck gun across his knee, and his ear to the crack. 

"Don't you smell something strange, uncle?" said the 
girl, after a pause. 

" ISTo," whispered the old man. " What like ?" 

"I thought I smelt wood burning. What is that I 
see on the floor ?" 

Her uncle looked dow^n on what seemed a carpet of 
lamb's wool, white and flaky, gradually spreading itself 
over the floor. Laidlaw leaned down his face until ho 



SMOKINa OUT THE ENEMY. 387 

could look out through the crack beneath the door. Then 
raising up his head suddenly, he stared at his niece, ex- 
claiming in a Avhisper — " They have set fire to the 
door." 

There was a long pause, and the two doomed people 
gazed at each other in silence. As they sat they could 
hear from without the dull rumbling of the flames as 
they gathered volume, and then at intervals the whoop 
of the savages in mocking tones. 

The thoughts that chased each other through the 
minds of the prisoners were stern and hurried. There 
was no water or other means of putting out the fire, and 
even had there been it was on the outside of the door 
and constantly supplied with fuel by the savages. In a 
little while the flames became perceptible through the 
crevices of the door as the panelling shrunk from the 
heat. The knots fell out, and through the openings left 
they could see the savages passing and repassing. Lou's 
mind likened them to devils in the flame of the pit, and her 
soul went up in an unsyllabled prayer for deliverance 
from a death to which only the torments of the lost bore 
any likeness. 

Had Laidlaw been a man like the men that the wild 
scenes of those days often engendered, he would have 
been plotting against the savages, or at least been pre- 
pared for this emergency and capable of inflicting a salu- 
tary revenge ; but he was mild and gentle, having outlived 
many of his friends and ambitions ; he returned to gentle 
pursuits and dreamy musings to fill his vacant mind. 



388 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

His only attempt now was a trial of endurance without 
any retaliation upon the savages, and laying aside his 
fowling-piece he assisted his niece in carrying up to the 
lantern a few things that a protracted stay might render 
necessary. A few bags of biscuit and boxes of figs, a 
canvas sail and a rope were brought up, and two or three 
glass reflectors of heavy weight and much value, were 
lifted up, with great labor, to the topmost j^latform. 

" I have forgotten my gun," said Laidlaw, descending 
for the last time the winding steps, blurred with smoke 
and dusky with the twilight, while Lou crouched down 
in the lantern to avoid being seen from the sands. 

" And bring up some tobacco for your pipe, uncle," 
she called after him, down the stairs. 

" I can't find the gun. Lou, did you see where I put 
it ?" he called from below. 

" Is it not leaning against the centre post ?" she 
called. 

The answer to her question was sent back up the con- 
fined tube of the tower, multiplied into infinite echoes by 
the hollow walls, in an Indian war-whoop. 

The savages had effected an entrance from below. 
Where was her micle ? She listened, but there was no 
sound of struggle or pleading, no prayer or groan, only 
the ^var-whoop came up in the darkness, echoing and re- 
echoing from vermilion colored lips and stony walls. She 
leaned her head down the trap door that communicated 
from the lantern to the stairs, calling, "Uncle, dear 
uncle, shall I come to you ?" But no voice or sound 



SMOKING OUT THE ENEMY. 389 

replied ; even the Indian yell died away. The fire at the 
door had been trampled out, and there was a most per- 
fect hush, contrasting fearfully with the yells and tumult 
a moment before. Lou listened and watched, but the 
tower was thick with smoke, and darkness had settled 
over all the world. She did not dare to descend, know- 
ing it would be a useless sacrifice and no help to her 
kinsman. She did not dare to go to the edge of the lan- 
tern, for doubtless the savages were watching her from 
below. She only fulfilled her woman's mission and 
waited and hoped. 

She had been thus lying on her breast by the trap 
door an hour or more, during the most profound silence. 
The moon had arisen, and by its rays the winding stairs 
came partially out of the obscurity. Here and there 
down the black vault, a narrow slit of pale Hght came 
across the darkness, from the windows, and made a 
freckle on the stairs. Something moved past one of 
these bars of light, far down the tower. A moment 
after it passed another opening on the moonward side of 
the tower. Again, though without noise, it had nioimted 
nearer, and where the bar of moonshine crossed it, Lou 
recognized the vermilion daubed face and braided scalp- 
lock of an Indian. In an instant after, it disappeared in 
the dark. She drew back as from an apparition, or from 
the arch fiend himself. She shut her eyes, and yet by 
her mental vision saw the brindled shape mounting 
nearer. 

She would have prayed, but she scorned to address in 



390 WILD SPOETS m THE SOUTH. 

her extremity One she did not openly petition in her 
pride of life. Her mind swejDt around the whole circuit 
of her years, summing up in a second an age of being, 
and millions of defences that might have aided her had 
they been there. Trees, woods, air and the ocean, love, 
hope, and books, flashed through her mind as quickly 
and brightly as the light in a summer cloud, and yet 
she was conscious without seeing him, of the approach 
of the dread shape that was climbing from below. It 
was the fascination of a fate that could not be averted. 

In a moment her eye fell upon a weight that had been 
used as a balance to the mechanism of the lamp. It was 
a heavy cannon ball, with a ring in it. She rolled it to the 
edge of the trap door, and when next the figure below 
passed the light of a window she let it fall. Downward it 
flew with swift gathering velocity, until it struck the 
savage on the bare forehead, when he was hurled with it 
to the bottom, striking from side to side a lifeless mass. 

As one throwing a stone in a marsh will wake to shrill 
clattering, the rails hiding in its lonely coverts, and as 
their mocking cries, answered from tussock and reed, 
immediately hush into silence again, so the two bodies, 
hurled wdtli a dull blow to the base of the tower, awoke 
the silence of the night with the baffled whoop of the 
savages who w^ere waiting below ; their cries were 
answered from other hiding-places, and immediately 
after the war whoop ceased, and a hush as of death 
reigned as before. 

Lou listened to the wailing cry and sank back appalled 



SMOKora OUT the enemy, 391 

at her own act of desperation. The darkness wrapped 
her as a mantle, not protectmg her but pinioning her 
arms in helplessness. It seemed the greater from the 
contrast with the beacon light that usually shone from 
the lantern brightening even the distant sea. She struck 
a match and lit the great lamp of the lantern, and as its 
flash broke out on the night her heart grew lighter at its 
accustomed cheerfulness. She could once more see the 
white walls of her house, and the ranks of marching 
breakers that knelt along the beach, discharging their 
regular volleys of noise and foam. She laid down on the 
floor so as to be secure from any shot from without, and 
watched the narrow winding steps of the tower. 

Where was her uncle ! There had been no voice or 
sound of him since they had j^arted. There was but one 
opinion as to his fate ; she could not think of it, and 
sternly shut it back lest she might be totally unnerved. 

A few hours sped by, and a motion at the base of the 
tower indicated some new attempt on the part of the 
besiegers. The experiment developed itself in a cloud 
of smoke that gradually mounted the tower and found 
vent through the trap door. Then a flame was seen 
below, and in a moment more the winding stairs were in 
a blaze. The fortress they dared not storm, was to be 
burned out. The girl looked around her as the smoke 
accumulated, and opened the windows and the door that 
led to the gallery to give it vent. The flames roared up 
through the aperture as through a hollow tree, above 
which the lantern, like the topmost boughs, came out 



393 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

agaiiist the night sky in bright relief or was wrapped in 
darkness as the flame or the smoke successively lighted 
or enveloped it. The girl cowered away from the flames 
as they came up the trap door, to the fullest extent of 
the tower. The smoke became denser and the stone 
beneath her warm. She wrapped a blanket around her 
and kept her face down to the floor. The fresh air that 
stole through the broken sash struggled with the smoke 
that curled around her. Her ear caught the whoop of the 
Indians exulting in their carnival, and an occasional shot 
that was fired at the lantern, more in triumph than with 
the intent to slay. She heard the surf, and the peevish 
cries of the sea birds that cii'cled around the unusual 
light. Her brain reeled with the smoke, and she became 
insensible. 

When she recovered her senses the morning had bro- 
ken and the world with its thousand happy tenants had 
awakened to the joys of another day. The slight 
wooden staircase in the tower had burned out, leaving 
the column of stone and mortar with its iron ribbed 
lantern as strong as before. The girl looked down the 
column and found herself cut ofl* from the earth. She 
looked out on the strand and there was no living being 
in sight. The lamp had gone out in the smoke. She 
looked out for her late enemies, but could see none. The 
world below her was beautiful to see, replete with rolling- 
breakers, shells and sands, floAvering palmettoes, and the 
long lagoon, with its little island, dreaming a hundred 
yards from shore. 



BESIEGING THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

BESIEGING THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 

" And that unknowing what he did, 

He leaped amid a murderous band, 

And saved from outrage worse than death 

The lady of the land." 

Coleridge. 

Theee are some positions in which one is thrown so 
hopeless, and so complicated in the abundance of their 
misfortunes, that the heart gives up resistance and lamen- 
tation. Then, after a little, there arises a pride of supe- 
riority, and the heart grows greater from its conscious 
scaling of these disasters. They cease to afflict, and are 
the sources of a pleasurable pride. 

So from her house of refuge by the sea Lou Jackson's 
mind ran over her lonely life, her position of disaster so 
singularly great, and her desolate feebleness against a 
nation of foes. Her mind recovered its tone, she became 
proud of herself, matching her feeble endurance against 
war, fire, and the girdling waves. She did not flaunt 
her new-found hardihood, but used the arm of the feeble, 
and kept concealed in the bottom of the lantern, yet 
proud of her own endurance and fortitude. She knew 
that Indian eyes were on the tower, and that the bushes, 



394 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

seemingly inhabited only by the cardinal birds, were 
sheltering her enemies as well. She peered out from the 
crevices of the tower, watching her foes or the passing 
sails that, unconscious of her fate, crept along the hori- 
zon, and the sea, in glassy undulations murmured to the 
shore. 

As noon rode in the dazzling air and the hollow toAver 
still stood, blackened by the fire, yet seemingly deserted, 
the Indians, satisfied by the death-like stillness, stole 
from their hiding-places to examine their work of 
destruction. First one crept out, with his rifle in his 
hand, winding around difi*erent covers until he reached 
the base of the toAver, and looked up its lofty cone. 
The embers still smoldered in its base, and up the 
darkened trunk he could see the square hole that led 
to the platform, and through it the blue of the sky. 
Then another savage came out, and another, and they 
gathered together and talked long at the base of the 
tower. Lou saw them from where she lay, and could 
have thrown her lamp-scissors on their heads, but she 
kept quiet and concealed. The savages, tired of their 
siege, aAd satisfied that they had destroyed the only 
occupants of the light-house, collected together the spoils 
from the dAvelling-house, and jDutting them in their 
canoes, prepared to start. Lou watched them eagerly, 
thinking she might see her uncle a prisoner among them. 
She saw the patchwork coverlet from her bed go down 
wrapped around a painted chief. She saw some of the 
little mantel ornaments, her uncle's large brass compass. 



BESIEGING THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 895 

the family kettles and pewter plates. She saw many a 
little article of grace and comfort, endeared to her by 
gift or use, passed tliroiigh hrutal hands and stored in 
the canoes lying in the lagoon, but her uncle w^as not 
there. The faint hope that had arisen in her soul faded 
away, and the mercury of her heart fell back with a cold 
chill. 

The Indians paddled off fast, to get to the main land, 
for the weather was changing ; a cold wind w^as blowing, 
and they preferred the shelter of the main to their ex- 
posed camp on the Key. In a little while their canoes 
looked like a train of ducks gliding over the black 
waters of the bay, and the curling waves came in from 
seaward with a hollow sound, booming out at sea, and 
hissing on the sands. Far beyond the regular shore- 
breakers, white spots on the ocean and curling ridges 
showed where the coral reefs reared their backs and 
made maelstroms of boiling waves tangled with sea-weed 
and brightened with foam. 

The sun set before its time in clouds. The air w^as all 
a haze. The gulls flew about hither and thither, like bits 
of white paper tossed on the winds. 

"A hard night at sea," said Lou, gathering herself up 
and looking round her citadel. The wind blew up the 
trap-door with spatters of the salt water, and found 
eQ:ress throuo-h the shattered lantern. She drew some 
planks over the hole, and after a fashion stopped the 
broken windows with pieces of boards or glass. The 
activity calmed her mind. She saw she w^as safe if she 



396 WILD sroKTS in the south. 

could hold out until some one came to her relief, or until 
the store-ship returned again. There were a bag of 
crackers and several cans of lamp oil safe from the 
flames stored in the lantern, but they formed a meagre 
diet. Slie trimmed her lamp as was her wont, from time 
to time stopping to watch the rising sea or scan the dis- 
tant shore, where the Indians had disappeared. The 
night was a severe one for coasting vessels. Many a 
wreck would strew the Keys by the morrow, now that 
the good light was destroyed. Many a brave ship with 
its light hearts and cabins full of mirth would " crash 
together the keel and the mast to be tossed up aloft in 
the glee of the wave ;" a sense of duty and self-sacrifice 
came over her mind, strengthening her to action. " The 
ships, at least, should have the benefit of the light as long 
as she was there," spoke the girl ; and so, when every- 
thing Avas made as secure in the lantern as her means 
admitted, she touched the wicks with turpentine, and 
then with a match. In an instant, like the electric con- 
tagion of a heroic deed, the bright light flashed over the 
seething main, in a long train of splendor; and the 
watching mariner who had been longing, yearning, for 
that light from his reeling deck, saw it and blessed it 
aloud, though he wist not the enduring heart that bade 
it burn. 

Down among the tangled foliage of one of the islands 
close bordering the far shore was crouched a band of 
Indians. Over the fire cooked their supi^er. Their 
canoes, inverted, lay along the shore. Their blankets 



BESIEGING THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 30 7 

and the plunder of their foray were scattered around 
them. The dense hedge of palmetto with its fan leaves, 
and the matted cane, bent over them, screening them 
from the wind, and though on the pulses of the gale they 
could hear the sobbing of the distant sea, they were 
secure from the tempest and from want, laughing low 
with humor, smoking their pipes, drying their leggins and 
stretching and basking like cats in the genial warmth and 
light of the fire. They too saw the bright flash of the 
light-house, as it stepped to its place in the heavens as did 
Herod the star over the cradle of Bethlehem. With their 
harshly uttered accents of surprise, they started to their 
feet and peered out from the foliage on the light they 
thought had darkened forever. The whole temper of 
their meal Avas changed, and with diverted glances and 
low conference they ate their food and glowered at the 
star that shone so placidly in the horizon. 

Still another party, besides the sailor on the sea and 
Indians at their camp, saw that star take its accustomed 
place in the dark. 

Mike was coming down the same lagoon when the 
far-floating specks of the Indian canoes caught his eye, 
and drove him to cover. He hid his little craft in the 
palmetto bushes on the land, and squatting beside it mth 
his hound, the two watched the savages pass and land 
on the beach opposite to him. There were three canoes 
— that was the same number he had been tracking, 
there were no women Avith the jjarty — that again tal- 
lied, but here were eight men, and there had been 



398 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

nine in Tiger Tail's party. Had they sacked the light 
and left with the spoils, after losing one man? This 
seemed to be probable. This would be a likely result, 
in case the two inhabitants of the Key were attacked in 
such a manner that they could return but a single blow 
before they were overpowered. 

" Or it might turn up," quoth Mike, to himself, " that 
they treed more'n they could ketch, and were goin' off 
for a time on a make-believe, leaving one to ketch the 
old man when he cum down. That's like 'em. Cum 
back, Yowler ; don't show your ugly mug to them crit- 
ters ; they know you better'n their own squaws." 

And the old dog obediently resumed his place at his 
master's side, and the couple quietly watched the open 
sound that had now become too rough to cross in a canoe. 

" No, taint it," continued Mike, to himself. " They've 
been here four or five days. They wouldn't have sot 
there all that time and done nothing. Wall, wall, time'll 
show." 

The hunter nibbled his jerked venison, giving a bit 
now and then to his dog, who sat with his head in his 
master's lap. He saw the screaming gulls come land- 
ward, and the darkness gather like a pavilion. He saw 
the light of the Indian fire, and the long reach of Key 
Biscayne like a log on the wrathful sea, and the 
breakers combing over either end. 

When the lantern suddenly looked down at him with 
its tranquil eye, he sprang to his feet, exclaiming — " God 
is good ! God is good to sinful critters. No daylight 



BESIEGmG THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 399 

was ever so pretty to a lonesome bein'. Ha ! they've 
got a long pull to make yet, before they can blow out 
that ere light." 

He conned over again the devices of the Indians, and 
came back to his first conclusion that there was one 
watching the light-house, while the rest had left on a 
ruse. 

"Don't think that ere Injin is in a very safe spot," 
said he to himself, rubbing down the barrel of his rifle 
with his rough hand, and looking at the waves that kept 
him still on shore. 

When the morning came, Tiger Tail with his band 
came back to the island to complete his revenge, but 
Mike had already gone down along the lee shore during 
the night, and was waiting for him. 

The Indians, well knowing who was in the tower, 
made no secret of their approach. They landed just 
back of the house, and walked around the tower, and in 
and out the little building where Lou had so pleasantly 
lived. They entered the base of the tower whooping 
and yelling, and looking with eager eyes toward the 
aperture that led to the lantern. The sea was still roll- 
ing in its heavy billows ; as they toppled over and 
danced in foam, the impetus of the waters behind them 
carried them up to the base of the tower, when they 
climbed up like a sheaf of white feathers, and then raced 
back down the sands to gain forctJ for another attempt. 
The outer side of the tower was in a measure protected 
by the surf from the savages, and they confined their 



400 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

attack to that side that looked out toward the little 
island in the bay. 

In the dwelling-house they found implements to aid 
them in their schemes. A beam was brought out and 
laid endwise against the tower. On this an Indian 
walked up and drove a spike into the plaster wall. He 
then mounted on the spike, the inclination of the tower 
permitting him to lean inward and drive another at such 
a height he could just reach it with his hand. With his 
hatchet he then cut out a stepping-j^lace for his foot, and 
mounted on to the second spike, and then another, 
mitil he climbed up to the overhanging ledge of the 
tower under the lantern. 

Thence throwing down his hatchet to his comrades he 
gradually extended one hand out until he could feel the 
edge of the overhanging eaves. This gave him a support. 
Then reachmg out the other hand, and dropping his feet 
from their support, he swung out pendent from his hands, 
and gradually raised himself up until he could see into 
the lantern. 

Lou had been all this time not unconscious of the 
plots of her foes, but she did not dare to overlook the 
eaves to see what they were intending, and therefore 
could not tell precisely how the blow was to fall. She lay 
down on the floor and waited, trusting to the Providence 
that had kept her thus far to preserve her to the end. 

While thus waiting and listening, her eyes fell upon 
the savage at the ledge of the platform. The crest of 
eagle feathers, the circles of black and vermilion, and the 



BESIEGING THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 401 

glaring eye, had something in it of so paralyzing a horror 
that she only gazed as she would have gazed in the 
dilating pupils of a lion, without making a motion of 
defence. 

At this instant there came to the ear of the girl the 
crack of a rifle. The surf roared so heavily on the 
beach, and the wind rushing so fiercely through the pal- 
mettoes, and wrestled with the cocoa-nut tree, that the 
report of the rifle could just be heard by the crouching 
girl in the lantern, and not at all by the crowd assem- 
bled on the noisy strand. 

But the Indian clinging to the tower heard it, and 
sprang half his length above the ledge by the contrac- 
tion of his arms alone. He writhed around so that his 
back turned toward the wall. His eyes searched the 
thickets and the little island that lay near by in the bay. 
He attempted to sound the war-cry, but the blood bub- 
bled out of his mouth and fell j^attering on the astonished 
staring group below. One hand fell ofi" from its grasp 
on the stone coining. He tried to reach it back again, 
but it wavered in the air half lifted. His eye, filming 
with death, caught sight of the white , sea-gulls that, 
drawn by the strange sight, balanced in the air above 
him, uttering their plaintive cries. He saw in them the 
pure spirits of the happy Hunting Grounds promised by 
his religion. His body swung around in the ^vind. The 
head fell back, and the fingers slipped their hold, while 
the dead corpse fell with a heavy thud on the sands. 

During the occurrence the savages stood m horror 



403 WILD SPOKTS m THE SOUTH. 

looking on the unaccountable spectacle. When the body- 
was hurled to the ground they paused a little, and then 
crept up to it, leaning over it and examining it. One 
pointed out with his finger the little blue spot under the 
arm that a rifle bullet makes. A guttural " ugh !" pro- 
claimed their assent and surprise. They lifted up their 
dead comrade and retired to the dwelling-house, setting 
him up against its walls, and held a long consultation. 

Lou crept up to the edge of the lantern and peered down 
through the crevices. She saw the dead warrior, and 
the council of the survivors, and their revengeful glances 
at the tower. She looked all around for the source of 
the rifle shot, but could see no living or moving thing. 
The same crash of waves on the one side, and the same 
monotonous line of coast and bay on the other. The 
little island stood oflf the shore, its palmetto bushes rust- 
ling and waving in the wind. The cocoa-nut tree bent 
and twisted, and far out at sea, past the Babel of noise 
and the tumbling waves, a happy white-sailed ship stood 
immovably on the horizon, passing from the north to 
some of the summer ports of the Indian islands. 

A movement among the Indians announced the ter- 
mination of the conference, and another attempt on the 
tower. A young man came out with his rifle hung over 
his back with a sling. Like his predecessor, he was 
naked to the waist, only dressed in his leathern breeches, 
and as he walked he drew off his moccasins. Another 
Indian climbed up on the roof of the house, and with his 
rifle resting on the chimney seemed to keep guard over 



BESIEGIXG THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 403 

the lantern. The others scattered about, each one in a 
different direction, thus commanding the tower from all 
sides. The young man who had first advanced Avalked 
up to the cocoa-tree, and keeping on the side furthest 
from the tower, commenced to ascend it. 

The beleaguered girl saw at a glance the intent of the 
savage, for the tufted head of the tree where hung the 
huge cocoa-nuts was nearly on a level with the base of 
the lantern, and lying as close as jDOssible, she would not 
be able entirely to hide herself from his shot. 

She saw him mount slowly up, only his arms and legs 
exposed to her view, looking like bronze serpents 
enlacing the tree. He had reached the top of the trunk, 
the long spinous leaves waved and tossed their bending 
fans above hint, and hid him from her view. He unslung 
his rifle from his back. There came a lull in the Avind. 
The cocoa-tree resumed its upright j)osition, and' the 
marksman steadied himself for a shot. Again sounded 
the crack of a rifle — it came from the islet in- the bay — 
and the young Indian dropped motionless to the sands 
beneath, like the fruit of the tree when it is fully ripe. 

There was no doubt in the minds of the savages now 
as to whence came the blo^v^. They had heard the 
report of the rifle, and each one, with a whoop, sprang 
off to a cover, and the one behind the chimney on the 
house-top jumped from his exposed position A^■ith a cele- 
rity that showed more fear than courage. In a moment 
more there Avas not a savage to be seen ; only the two 
dead bodies lay on the beach. 



404: WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

MIKE AND TIGEH TAIL PLAY CHESS. 

" Falstaff, These nine in buckram that I told thee of, began to give me 

ground. 

Prince Henry. monstrous !" 

KiNa Henry the Fourth. 

There are some peculiarities in the Indian cbaracter 
that resemble those of a cat. The Indian is patient, and 
nntiring in pursuit of prey, not seizing it b'y force but by 
surprise. He never openly attacks an equal, but waylays 
him, nor risks a life to take another, though the taking of 
that other may have been his sole occupation for days. 
The knowledge of these feline qualities of the savage 
mind gives to some backwoodsmen their great success 
in Indian warfare, and a reputation that, like Coeur de 
Lion's, is handed down from generation to generation 
among obscurer nations than those that knew the great 
Crusader 

Mike was a philosopher in this lore. A saying of his 
was, " I know what an Injin's up to by his paint," mean- 
ing that his war paint, his trappings, the arms he carried, 
the decoration of his dress, or its freshness,' woul(J show 
the errand on which its bearer was bent. 



MIKE AND TIGER TAIL PLAY CHESS. 405 

So when the savages fell back from the tower, leaving 
the bodies of their two comrades on the sand, Mike 
slowly and methodically loaded his rifle, under the cover 
of the 2^almetto-bushes that covered the little islet, mea- 
suring the charge of powder in an alligator's tooth that 
hung at his girdle, and trimming off the spare corners 
of his greased patch after the ball was fitted as carefully 
as though he was shooting for a Christmas turkey, and 
then taking ont his store of venison from his hunting shirt, 
made his morning meal, as assured of a truce as though 
in his cabin. The islet he was concealed upon was 
scarcely twenty yards across, and yet so luxuriantly had 
the palmetto overgrown it that no single bit of sand 
could be seen. It looked like a floating garden. Under 
the broad fan-like leaves of the j)lants the hunter had 
made a pathway like an otter from the outer side to the 
landward edge, and thence he looked out on the light, a 
hundred yards across the open water and the long 
extended beach, 

ISTo boat could appear on the open water, or any 
approach be made to the lightliouse without its being 
seen from the island. Mike knew that the Indians would 
not expose themselves either in the one way or the other, 
although they outnumbered him six to one. That they 
were w^atching him he was perfectly assured, and he did 
not give them the opportunity of seeing his hiding-place, 
by any unwary motion, as it would only draAV their bul- 
lets. He merely stretched out an arm over the deep 
muzzled head of his hound, and slept. 



406 WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 

From the other side of the narrow straits the 
Indians frowned on the island, consulted together, or 
passed from clump to clump to examine it the more 
closely, carefully screening their bodies from the hunter, 
thouirh careless as to all observation from the lio-ht-house. 
Among them, preeminent in gracefulness of figure, was 
one who wore on his breast a silver medal, like those 
given to Indians of distinction by the government of the 
United States, as a reward, or inducement to fidelity. 
He had crawled down almost to the beach, and from 
behind some broken timber kej^t a steadfast watch of the 
island. Although they had seen neither the marksman, 
his trail, nor any of his signs, there was no doubt in the 
Indians' mind as to whom the island concealed. Mike's 
character was too well known to doubt whose daring act 
had cost the band two of their best warriors. Even had 
they not knoAvn his intimacy at Far Away, or been 
warned by the diamond cut, his well known monogram, 
that he had marked on their canoe. Tiger Tail would 
have given his rifle and squaw for the scalp Mike wore, 
and yet there slept the scout, almost in sight of him and 
his band, and they dared not go and take him. 

Had a stranger looked on the scene he would have 
considered the beach a desolate ruin, never more to be 
inhabited. The lonely tower was blackened and marred, 
the place was deserted, and the two dead bodies lay on 
the sand, watched by the vultures that, with braced 
wings, crept in slow circles like motes in the upper air. 
The storm of the previous night had passed away. 



MIKE AND TIGEE TAIL PLAY CHESS. 407 

The descending sun sullenly set in the everglades, the 
wind lulled, and a gentle rain fell like a mist. The trees 
and light-house loomed large in the obscurity, and the 
white reefed breakers on the reefs, sjoitting their frothy 
spume into air, could not be distinguished from the drift- 
ing scuds that settled down on the sea. A tangled path 
would the ocean be for the ships that walked its waters 
that night. 

Lou Jackson shivered on the stone flooring of the 
tower. The meagre diet of biscuit, the drink of rain 
water lapped up from the hollows of the stone, the 
excitement and terror, had begun to w^ork on her sys- 
tem. Her hand trembled, her eye was sunken and bril- 
liant, and her mind, excited unduly, ran riot with fancy 
and vision, and became morbidly sensitive to the slight- 
est indication of passing events. She knew that some 
one was near and had fired on the Indians. Who or 
from where she had not descried. She could see the 
bodies of the two Indians lying on the sands, and others 
walking about, and she knew she was still a hunted ani- 
mal, and, with the instinct of a quarry, hid as best her 
reason taught her. 

But another thought came to her Avith the closing day 
and the darkening sea. She thought of the happy homes 
on the open main, and her mind took in the children's 
laugh, and the lighted cabin with its music and books, 
and the foretop with its hanging sailors prying about for 
Cape Florida light. Her own mother went to sea when 
Lou was yet a child ; whether she went down crushed 



408 WILD SPOETS m THE SOUTH. 

under toppling seas, whether she was captured by pirates, 
or still floated over the waves, watching for her native 
harbor, Lou did not know, only her feverish mind pic- 
tured her leaning over the taffrail, and saw her pale face 
looking for shore. When night came down, trailing her 
black robes heavy with the sea fog, and shutting out the 
earth, the vision came stronger still. Her mother's voice 
calling to her in the wind to save her — the sea bird 
"lone watcher of despair" piped to her in plaintive 
cries for help. It was the call of the remembered voice. 
The feeling was so strong she knew her mother was 
careering past the reefs ; she saw the sheeted ship among 
the sprnne, and started to save her. She arose from her 
hard bed, and taking her scissors and oil can, trimmed 
the great lamps and wiped dry the reflectors. She 
touched them with spirits and then striking a match, the 
fair light flashed out to sea, and the light-keeper again 
sank to her hiding-place. The darkness had j^rotected 
her while trimming the lamps, and when the light came 
she sank so quickly to the floor, the Indians could as 
easily have shot one of the bale-fires that sometimes 
hung about the tower, as she. As if in answer to her 
act of devotion a moment after, from so far at sea, it 
looked like a thread of gold, a rocket went uj) into the 
air, parted its trident rays, and dropped again into dark- 
ness. 

"Mother mother !" called the o-irl stretchino: her thin 
hands seaward toward the signal light of the ship, " I 
come, I come " — but only the billows thundered back 



MIKE AKD TIGER TAIL PLAY CHESS. 409 

their responses, and her wavering mind flickered between 
reason and madness. 

When the lamp shone out from the tower, the scout, 
satisfied of the safety, as he supposed, of Laidlaw and his 
niece, carefully backed out from his concealment, and 
drawing his canoe from under the rank foliage, noise- 
lessly embarked and disappeared in the darkness like a 
wraith. The fog and darkness concealed his movements 
from all observation. He knew that with the darkness 
he would be attacked by the savages, and that they 
would leave unmolested the tower until he was taken or 
driven from the neighborhood. Having the first move, 
he moved away like a knight on the chess board, with a 
great zig zag that carried him far out into the sound, and 
then back to where he had seen the Indian canoes lying 
during the day-time. 

This detour cost him much time, moving with the 
caution that he thought necessary. "When he had floated 
into one of the narrow creeks, 'or ditches, that ran up 
into the beach, he left his canoe and the hound, and 
crept dov.^n the shore to where he had seen the Indians 
landing. Their canoes were gone. " Ha, I knowd it," 
said Mike to himself, " they've given over the fawn and 
are trailin' the painter now." 

He crept on slowly from bush to bush toward the 
tower, and soon came out from the grove to the cleared 
land, and warily examinined on every side for the rear 
guard left by the enemy. There appeared to be none. 

18 



4:10 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOTTTH-. 

" Six agin odg," said Mike, smiling to himself, " that's 
hardly fair play." 

Then straightening himself up under some heavy 
foliage he looked long up into the lantern. There was 
no sound or motion from there, only the light burned on 
tranquilly, falling aslant on the heavy waves that crum- 
bled over and hurried up the beach, simmering with the 
phosphoric fire that made them blue and white. 

" Wall, wall, them folks are roostin' higher 'en turkey 
cocks ; I wonder ef I could crawl up thar." 

He crept along the house and found it sacked, and 
finally reached the foot of the tower. Drawing his hunt- 
ing knife he stepped inside, and felt around with his 
hands. Nothing^ but ashes and cinders met his hand. 
" Burned oMt the hollow tree," said he, and then looking 
up at the little glimmer of light that came down through 
the trap door, he continued, " but didn't smoke out the 
coons." 

Turning to go, his foot encountered something soft. 
He leaned down and felt it with his hands. It felt like 
a human body, and a taint of corrugation emanated from 
it that burdened the heavy air. A fearful idea seized 
the hunter ; he grasped the body with both hands and 
carried it into the light. There was just light enough to 
see that it was the body of a man. The hunter felt the 
head and it was scalped. He stood up for a moment 
and drew a long breath, repeating his favorite prayer of 
thanksgiving and praise, " God is good, God is good to 
sinful creeturs." 



MIKE AND TIGEE TAIL PLAY CHESS. 411 

A stranger would have wondered what the simple 
man could have found in the mangled corpse to call 
forth so fervent an ejaculation of praise and of joy. 

Then carrying back the body and placing it just where 
he found it, he glided back to the bushes and was soon 
hid in his canoe under the mangrove roots that laced 
and interlaced the crumbling banks. 

It was growing toward morning when the hunter 
heard the Indians returning. He saw the boats glide 
past without noise, seeking their former landing. From 
where he lay hid he could have reached out and touched 
them with his paddle. He counted the Indians as they 
passed — there were but five. 

" "Where's that t'other one ?" questioned he in a whis- 
per. No one answered his question, and when the boats 
were out of sight Mike shot out into the open water, 
and the strong long pushes of his paddle soon swept 
his canoe around opposite the island he had lain on 
during the day. The light from the lantern guided him 
so that he lost no time, and when the little islet could be 
discerned he halted, backed out a little, and softly let 
down a stone anchor attached to a string to keep his 
canoe from drifting from its place. Then throwing off 
his hunting shirt and moccasins, and armed only with 
his knife, he cautiously let himself down into the water 
and floated toward the island. As he reached it he 
quietly drew himself up out of the water and wormed 
his way under the palmetto leaves toward the shore- 
ward end of the island. In a moment more there was a 



412 WILD SPOETS m THE SOUTH. 

guttural sound from the darkness, and the dense foliage 
was violently agitated as if two bodies were struggling 
beneath. The noise could not be heard on the shore for 
the sound of the surf. But backward and forward on 
the islet swayed the heavy leaves of the sea-rocket, that 
reared its red head from the palmettoes, and Yowler, 
the hound, stretched his head shoreward from the boat 
and snuffed the air with quivering nostrils, and his eyes 
glowed like a lion's. Presently Mike crawled out again 
from the foliage, dragging down to the water's edge the 
pliant lithe body of an Indian that he left under the 
leaves, and then he swam out and drew up his boat to 
the island and hid it where it had been before, under the 
tangled leaves. 

Then the red flush came out of the sea, and the morn- 
ing wind, and like an army with banners, the great sea 
fog rolled up its masses and trailed away over the ever- 
glades, leaving the tower, and the beach, and the 
tumbling seas, rejoicing in the beauty and the joy of a 
Sabbath morning. 

In a little while after the light appeared, the warriors 
of Tiger Tail's band showed themselves among the cop- 
pices on the beach, carefully beating up every spot that 
might afford a cover for the scent they had spent the 
night in searching for. They went into the ruined 
dwelling, and then into the light, and away down to 
where the point of land dwindled into the surf, and 
finally, as if satisfied with their search and ashamed of 
the flight of their foe, they resumed their positions 



MIKE AND TIGER TAIL PLAT CHESS. 413 

around the tower, and one of them, laying his rifle 
down, prepared to make the ascent of the outer wall to 
the light, that still burned dimly and fitfully in the lan- 
tern, like the morning star in the sky. The forest mata- 
dor carefully prepared himself for his task by laying 
aside his hunting-shirt that the Seminoles wore, contrary 
to the usual habit of dress among native tribes. He took 
off the necklace of coins with a pendent crescent of silver 
that ornamented his breast. He threw aside his wrought 
belt with its bullet-pouch and sheath, and putting his 
knife between his teeth, like a butcher, with a cat-like 
bound ran up the timber that still leaned against the 
tower, and carefully mounted the first of the iron spikes 
driven into the wall. His tight buckskin leggins were 
fringed with blue, his naked chest and arms glistened 
with sweat, and the sunshine and the vermilion-colored 
painting on his face and breast made him resemble an 
ocelot climbing a tree. He found the ascent very easy, 
until he reached the top of the tower, where it curved 
out to form the little gallery that ran round the lantern. 
Here he paused for a moment, adjusting his feet and 
inserting a hand in a crevice of the wall to support him, 
while he reached out with the other to fix his hold in 
the ledge, and here he met the bolt of fate from Mike's 
rifle, that with its clear ringing knell proclaimed to the 
astonished band that not only was their comrade on the 
tower death-stricken, but that necessarily the outpost 
they had left on the island in the night had first fallen 
before the same avenger. 



414 WILD SPORTS m THE SOUTH. 

Sometimes, when one is hunting squirrels, and has 
made his shot at some determined nut-cracker in a 
stately hickory, he will see the wounded animal shiver 
and drop the unoj^ened nut it held in its teeth, then 
move on a little and lay flat on the limb, then one by 
one its feet relaxing their hold, until it slips from the 
cradling bough, still chnging by one paw, and when that 
loses its grasp, catching at a lower branch with the 
other, while on the forest leaves, with a slow patter, the 
red drops fall until the still wrestling animal hurtles 
from its retreat, crashing through the leaves to the earth 
beneath, never more to wake the morning with its shrill 
bark, or shower down the hanging dew beneath its dizzy 
leap. 

So the Indian on the tower at the crack of the rifle 
shivered and dropped his hunting-knife from between 
his teeth, and reluctantly qiutted his hold and fell to the 
earth below. His comrades had already fled to cover, 
and lying there in the sun he clenched the sand, gave a 
few convulsive sobs, and lay still forever. 

An hour passed by when Mike saw from his conceal- 
ment the four Indians that remained crossing the sound 
in their boats, they had considered it safest to beat their 
retreat while they knew precisely where their foe was 
intrenched. They carried their dead with them, save 
the body of the one lying by Mike on the islet, and 
fled in the direction they were taking when the light 
ill the lantern recalled them to complete their 
revenge. 



X-i.i 



MIKE AND TIGER TAIL PLAY CHESS. 415 

The hunter watched then- course until they faded into 
the distant shore, and then coming out of his retreat, 
crossed over to the beach. For the first time since his 
arrival he seemed in a hurry. When he hailed the 
tower and called Lou Jackson by name his voice trem- 
bled, and when no answer came down to his repeated 
questions, he threw off his coat and climbed up m the 
same way so ineffectually tried by the savages. 

Lou heard him call, and recognized his voice. She 
was lying on the stone floor, and her mind had returned 
with the soothing dayUght, yet she retained the con- 
sciousness of its wanderings, and thought she was 
dreaming. The vision was so pleasant to her she held 
her breath that it might not go away. Others had come 
to her and gone during the night, and left her alone to 
the terrors of death. She dreaded lest this one might 
also go. Presently she heard the brushing of garments 
against the outer wall, and the breathing of some one 
near her, and then she knew the vision was gone, and 
dreaded the spectre head she had before seen rising in 
the self-same place. She drew back in fear, and closed 
her eyes to shut out the Medusa head that was to trans- 
fix her with horror. She heard a sudden bound, as 
though something had swung itself onto the gallery, 
and then in her vision came the brown face of Mike the 
hunter, and she heard his low voice as he stooped over 
her, saying, as he lifted her in his arms : 

" Lou, child, they haint put out the light yet." 



41^ WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER XXX, 

THE SUEEENDEK AT DISCKETION. 

" Of bowe and sliafte lie bin bereft, 
And eke of bugil home ; 
A goodlye \riglite, by craftie slyglite 

Alake ! is overborne." Old Ballad. 

The reader must carry his mind over three years that 
had flown between the events narrated in our last chap- 
ter and those about to be in the present. A few more 
grey hairs had interspersed the Doctor's curls, another 
wrinkle marked Mike's eyelid, and a little of the fresh- 
ness of my life had wasted, when the Christmas festivi- 
ties of a happy house brought us all once again together. 

We met at the Moorlands, a sea-island plantation, 
one of many that from underneath the live oaks are 
visible from the arms of the sea that indent the 
Georgia coast. Happy, dignified homes, at once the 
centre of an extensive agriculture and an abundant 
and unostentatious hospitality. Boys were home from 
college; packages of northern goods and books had 
arrived ; the negroes Avere gay with their Christmas gifts 
and privileges; the ladies bright with the excitement, 
and the world with sunshine; the gentlemen were 
boisterously preparing for the snipe and partridge shoot- 



l-HE SURRENDER AT DISCRETION. 4lT 

ing, and even Mike — the quiet, satirical Mike — had 
awakened to the uses of the holidays. 

Mike, agreeably to a promise to spend the Christmas 
days at the Moorlands, had come as punctual as the year 
itself, and his wild, droll stories woke the fireside to 
peals of laughter when we nightly fought our battles 
o'er again. The house we were visiting was a portion 
of an estate that had reverted to Lou Jackson, and that 
from poverty had raised her again to wealth, and the 
feast that had lasted for a week was made doubly joyful 
by seeing our hostess of Far Away the head of the old 
homestead. 

The allotted time of our visit, spent in a round of 
pleasure, had flown away, and it was now the middle of 
the night preceding New Year's day. The moon, 
" sweet regent of the sky," overlooked the Moorlands, 
and her reflections flecked the lawn, whitened the house, 
' brightened the whitewashed negro cabins, and made the 
Altamaha a belt of silver among the rice-fields. The air 
was still, and all the household realized in dreams the 
hopes of the incoming year. The great house itself 
seemed to slumber, with its half-open doors, its smokeless 
chimneys, its scattered implements of labor, shadowed 
by trees, and lost in the forgetfulness of the early morn- 
ing. Its young mistress lay in her bed, with her head 
pillowed on her hand. The door of her room opening 
on the piazza was ajar, and the moonshine in a flood 
came in, revealing the turned down book on the stand, 
and the white garments upon the chair, yet warm and 

18* 



418 WILD SrORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

conscious of the sleeper. Around the room were scat- 
tered many a memento of the maiden's former life — skins, 
and sketches, and Indian ornaments, the little indications 
of tasteful womanhood that make a house retain the 
image of the owner even after the owner may have gone 
to the house not made with hands. 

Something disturbed the sleeper, her lips moved, and 
her regular breathing was stopped. She drew her white 
shoulders under the cover. The dream within her was 
strong, for her color changed, and a short, quick-drawn 
breath heaved her bosom, her eye half unclosed, and she 
seemed to see Mike standing in her room by the window, 
with his cap in his hand and his rifle on his arm. She lay 
still with her body, though her thoughts recovered their 
intensity in a second, and gathered up the past like a gar- 
ment. The old days came back to her as they trooj) past 
a person in a fever, and woods and water, the moving 
sea, danger and childish fancies. Her life had nurtured 
her originally bold imagination until it ran wild, and her 
reason then made her control herself until she appeared 
to strangers to maintain a stoical reserve. Years agone 
she had sat by Mike, with her hand on his knee, listenuig 
to his wild tales, like Desdemona, " still questioning him 
the story of his life." As she grew older she drew the 
hand away, yet listened still, or counted the times and 
seasons of his coming and going. Older still she grew, 
and the distance between her and a mere scout became 
perceptible to her mind, and then pride came, doubt of 
herself, and experience, and she drew back ; drew back 



THE SURRENDER AT DISCRETION. 419 

in form, though her heart did not. She knew her heart 
did not, and so for that knowledge the more severely she 
kept herself from his contact. 

Then came a change in her position in life. The In- 
dian bullet made her an orphan child, and, like him, a 
vagabond, not knowing where to shelter herself. Guided 
by his woodcraft to Tampa Bay, she needed all the 
remembrance of her former hauteur and superiority to 
guard the safety of her heart. She reasoned to herself, 
and shamed herself to thinking that where she once felt 
so superior she could never feel just equal. Her sorrow 
at her father's death was with her, and she was glad to 
flee from us away to civilized life, where no such wild 
imaginings could come across her mind. 

Once again the thoughts of her heart underwent a 
change. When the hunter came to her in her darkest 
hour of distress in the light-house, when he nursed her 
w^ith the tenderness of a woman, when he guarded her 
with the loyalty of a knight, and after weeks of a simple, 
humble devotion that was past all show, and silent in 
words, though ceaseless in acts, finally restored her to 
life, to wealth, and to her kindred, then Lucy Jackson 
became conscious to herself, and blushed at the know- 
ledge. She was all unveiled to her own eyes ; she floated 
in his approbation, and was crushed by his unimpassioned 
look. 

But while she had been changing, he, too, had changed, 
and, like her, acquired a pride all of his own. He was 
conscious that he had been kept at a distance at Bonda 



420 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 

Key, he was not analyst enough to tell how ; this, to his 
sensitive heart, was a refusal, abject, persistent, unreason- 
able. He felt that in her was a certain pride, and, lov- 
ing her, acquired it himself. When he became the means 
of her salvation at Key Biscayne, that pride grew side 
by side with a species of knightly honor that would not 
allow him to avail himself of the gratitude of the person 
he had benefited. Such a coercion would be like selling 
his bold deeds for his own advantage. She was helpless, 
weak, and distressed ; he refused to ask what might be 
conceded as a right, and what he had not, when pleading 
as an outcast before a superior being, received before. 
So modest he was, he saw not the longings that he had 
awakened — so mutely, devotedly humble, he never 
dreamed of success after his first hope was thwarted. 
He walked by her side a servant, and turned back to the 
woods again when the service was done, leaving her rich 
in substance, yet poor in spirit, bowed down with a feel- 
ing of being scorned, and yet of having caused that neg- 
lect by her own act. 

Three years had passed since then, and had brought 
no change to her feelings, though much to her wisdom. 
Three years had given her wealth and acquaintance, and 
a world of social life that had a bustle and a wakefulness 
about it disconsonant with a mind that had passed so 
many years in the quiet enjoyment of nature. She 
attended races and regattas, travelled and visited, but to 
her mind would come the moaning of the sea, and to her 
eye almost nightly would appear a camp-fire with its 



THE 6UEEENDER AT DISCRETION. 421 

appurtenances of dogs, and trees, and slumbering figures, 
or the lonely lamp in the lantern would loom out of the 
brine of her tears. It was the ghost that would not 
down, and all the while came back to her again and 
agaui in every form or tone the scene at Bonda Key, 
v\'here she had repulsed the single hope she now would 
give her life to recall. 

Mike's measured, quiet demeanor that is natural to the 
woods, protected his feelings from scrutiny during his 
visit to the Moorlands, if he had any that he wanted 
to conceal. His frankness was like an armor that made 
fall to the ground all questions and suspicions. Lou 
watched him with a carefulness that left no act or word 
unnoticed, and yet with all, learned nothing of his hopes 
or his inner thoughts. He seemed to tell all, yet she sus- 
pected and watched for more that might be unsaid. 
When she had his familiar company she feigned to her- 
self that it was of little value, but when she had it not, 
its absence left her life vacant, and his deference was a 
burning reproacli. She knew he was going soon back 
to whence he came. He seemed " weary of the rolling 
hours." As a migratory bird that sees the passing flocks 
against the sky, or a traveller that hears the airs of his 
native land, he seemed to be looking southward and 
counting the time. The knowledge of his going kept 
Lou's eye anxious, and made her toss and mutter in her 
sleep. Was it a consciousness he was by, that bade her 
wake ? Did a paining of the heart make her feel he was 
nearing her in her sleep ? Was it a conscious presence 



4:22 WILD 6P0ETS IN THE SOUTH. 

— was it a communication like that which tells one that 
some one behind his back is watching him — or that calls 
at night in the misty woods of June to the trysting hun- 
ter, Come — come ? Or was it that electric flash of plea- 
sure from eye to eye that makes you feel and know that 
some one you are talking to is pleased and pleases, and is 
very like you, though he is a stranger ? Her heart almost 
ceased its beating, when she saw him stand there in her 
room, every nerve was conscious of his presence, and 
throbbed, her ear heard his heart beating, her nostril de- 
tected the scent of his person, her fingers seemed to feel 
of his arm, the texture of his coat, and the fur of his cap. 
Was it a dream ? Then, dear dream, stay forever. I 
will not move, lest I affright you. No ! it was no dream, 
for in a moment the figure moved — it came nearer, laid 
something down on the stand by the bed, and taking 
up a lace sleeve of hers that was lying there, put it in its 
bosom, glided back to the window ; the moonshine 
glinted on rifle and belt, and it was gone. 

Lou Jackson sprang to the table ; on it she saw a fan, 
such as are only made in Florida, of the tail of the 
roseate spoonbill, the head, with its broad bill, being so 
fastened that it served as a handle. 

Years before she had told Mike to get her such a fan, 
making some laughing promise if he succeeded. Had 
he mutely claimed the promise ? She ran to the window, 
and saw him following the path that led to the boat land- 
ing. His pack was on his arm, his hound was following 
him, — ^he had gone. Where was the proffered promise ? 



THE SURRENDER AT DISCRETION. 423 

was it thrown back to her in scorn ? His humble devo- 
tion rebuked the thought. A moment of sinking horror, 
an upstart of wild hope, and Lou, wrapping a dressing- 
gown about her, was fleeing down the path he went. 
The cockspurs stung her feet, but she did not feel them, 
the dank smell of the salt grass recalled the Drowned 
Lands of Ouithlacouchee, and its memory of pleasure, 
but like a wraith she fled onward between the low 
drooping moss that overhung the path down to the 
Altamaha and came out on the open glade that 
margined the river. The moonlight stared her out 
of countenance wdth the boldness of her act, and 
she halted and turned back to the shadoAV. Suppose 
he should look coldly on her — w^hat scorn would there 
be like that ? She looked at her naked feet, and re- 
treated into the obscurity. The glow-worm turned his 
eye on her, the palmetto pointed its long finger at her. 
Custom, instinct, and doubt, blew in her face with the 
salt air, and made lier shiver. They tied her there as to 
a stake, while she knew he was being banished forever. 
A chain clanked on the shore. She knew it was the 
boat's chain he had unfastened. 

" One word, oh ! one word — I would die for one word. 
I love him so I will take shame for him, scorn from him, 
anything but this doubt," she said, half aloud, and again 
hurried toward the beach. Mike stood with his foot on 
his boat, wherein were lying his gun and his dog. 

He started as the hound challenged the comer Avith a 
growl, and the girl placed her hand on his shoulder, 



424: WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 

calling to him: "Mike! Mike! where are you go- 
ing?" 

" Back home," answered the hunter, dropping the 
boat's painter in his surprise, and speaking in a half 
whisper. 

" Take me with you, Mike — take me with you ?" 

" Child, would you go in the night and alone ?" said 
Mike, drawing her robe together where it was falling 
from her shoulder ? 

" Oh ! Mike, are you blind, or am I mad ? Take me 
— take me — don't leave me !" and as the hunter put his 
great arm about her, she whispered, " Take me and love 
me," and her head fell on his breast. 

He gathered her up in his arms, and carried her back 
from the wet shore, like an infant whispering in a bro- 
ken voice, while his tears fell down on her hair : " God 
is good, God is good to sinful creeturs !" 

The roseate fingers of the morning unclasped from 
beneath the ocean horizon, and a hundred tongues from 
copse and grass anthemed the dawn of a new day and a 
new life. 




THE END. 









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